On Wednesday, Jan. 23, the Francis Howell North wrestling team took on the Francis Howell Vikings in the Knights’ final home duel of the season. Despite the Knights winning the majority of their matches, they still fell to the Vikings 45-30. The deciding factor of the match was North’s four open spots, giving Howell 24 free points.

“The four open spots are why we lost the match. If you looked at the matches we wrestled, we won them,” Assistant coach Sean Fowler said. “One of the frustrating aspects of being a coach here is that we’ve never had a full lineup. It’s hard for us to win duels against teams with full lineups. But overall, it’s the best we’ve wrestled against Howell in a long time.”

The Knights were put in a deep whole early into the duel, being down by as much as 21 points halfway into the duel. However, the Knights sparked up a comeback, as the wrestlers were able to string together four victories in a row, which was capped off by a comeback victory by sophomore Jesse Collins, who secured his victory with a reversal in the last 20 seconds of the match to beat Howell’s Cole Litteken by decision.

“I felt proud of myself because that was the best match I’ve wrestled in my life,” Collins said. “A lot of people thought I was going to lose that match because he [Litteken] was way taller and stronger than me and I felt proud of myself.”

The Knights will have their chance at revenge at the FH Thrasher tournament, which is the last major tournament for varsity before the district tournament. One of the main concerns for the wrestlers as districts approaches is keeping wrestlers like senior T.J. Condren, who has had a left knee injury for the past couple of weeks, healthy so they can perform their best when it matters most.

“I think a big thing right now is for me to rehab my knee and keep icing to try and keep swelling down,” Condren said. “I’ll have the rest of the week off and I will try to return to practice next week and hopefully be healthy and ready to wrestle at the district tournament.”