Liberty showed some rust being back on the mat for the first time in two weeks Sunday night, but the Hurricanes had enough gas in the tank to have little trouble topping city-rival Freedom.

Senior Jake Gunning led the Liberty brigade, taking home the Daniel McIntyre Award as the most outstanding wrestler, as Liberty won 43-25.

The 'Canes taste for competition had left them anxious since the Virginia Duals, as matches against Bethlehem Catholic and Nazareth were postponed, leaving Liberty to face off against Freedom as their last bout before this week's district duals.

Those plans were stalled again after Saturday's snow forced the match to be moved to Sunday afternoon.

Head coach Jody Karam was happy to get the win, but knows there is plenty of room for improvement following his team's display.

"We're just happy to get a dual meet in because we were really hurting for matches and competition," Karam said. "We have some improving to do. We lost three close matches that we shouldn't have lost and you can't expect to be a team that wants to qualify for the state tournament and lose matches like that."

Liberty recorded five falls in the bout, led by Gunning's fall over Josh Newhart in 5:10 at heavyweight. KJ Fenstermacher (113), John Ritter (126) Kevin Knox (160) and Noah Klingborg (170) rounded out the Liberty falls on the night, as the Hurricanes won eight matches, seven of which by bonus points.

Knox's pin over Jacob Webb in 3:21 at 160 earned him the Rell B. Karam Award for most aggressive wrestler, which is what Gunning took home last year.

This time around, he was happy to take home another award, as well as a victory over Freedom.

"It's a big win for us team wise, but we lost some matches we shouldn't have," Gunning said. "I don't know if some of our guys got lazy out there, but we have to stay sharp because we have bigger things we want to accomplish this year."

One of the aforementioned bouts that Karam and Gunning were referring to in the category of bouts they shouldn't have lost was a 106-pound skirmish between Luke Werner and Dylan Brown.

Werner led his Freedom counterpart 5-3 with less than 20 seconds left in the third period, but was penalized a point on a caution off the whistle to make it 5-4.

Brown then got the escape before the buzzer to send the bout into overtime. He then scored a five-point move with a throw near the edge of the mat in overtime to take home a 10-5 victory.

For Pates head coach Brandon Hall, it was a moment in the match that let him forget about the reality of the eventual end result.

"I knew going into this match we really didn't have the horses to pull out the win, but crazier things have happened," Hall said. "You look at our lineup and see that we're missing some guys to injury and that's tough to overcome. "Brown had an excellent match, Jonah [Zych] had a great win and closed out his match and Adam Evans did well too. I'm pleased with the effort, but you always want to win."

Zych edged Joe Curzi by a 3-1 score at 120, while Evans squeezed out a 6-5 decision over Carlos Colon.

Both teams now move forward to Thursday's opening round of the District 11 3A tournament.