It may have only been a weekend dual-meet tournament, but Bethlehem Catholic’s performance at FLO Wrestling’s Who’s #1 Duals at the Palestra on Saturday will be a day the Golden Hawk faithful will always remember.

The Hawks reached Saturday evening’s finals only to lose to national power Blair Academy 36-18, but that didn’t take anything away from the morning the Golden Hawks experienced following their 28-26 upset win over Bergen Catholic, the second ranked team in the country by Intermat’s rankings.

The Hawks (10-1) came away with the historic win over one of New Jersey’s most dominant programs thanks to Zach Glenn’s (106) fall over Richard Halal in the final bout of the match to pull Becahi from the depths of a four-point deficit into stunning victors.

The win pushed the Hawks into Saturday’s finale against Blair, which expectedly saw their New Jersey counterparts, who were ranked third by Intermat, come away with the championship.

But you could get a sense that the win over Bergen meant more and will undoubtedly be remembered and talked about for years.

“I would have traded at least one of our state championships for that win over Bergen,” said Hawks’ head coach Jeff Karam. “In all honesty, that was probably the most satisfying dual meet win that I’ve ever experienced because it was such a quality team that we wrestled.

“We fought them tooth and nail and it was just an epic dual meet. I’ve been around coaching a long time and I’d like to see some more of those.”

With five of the top 10 teams in the country migrating to Philadelphia for Saturday’s event, the Hawks came away from their pool undefeated, knocking off Florida’s Lake Highland Prep 43-21 in their morning opener, followed by their win over Bergen and capping off pool action with a 51-15 victory over St. Augustine Prep (NJ).

Mustering up energy and focus to battle the likes of Blair Academy in the finale appeared to be a struggle for the Hawks and was something that Karam feared after the emotional ride following the win over Bergen.

“My major concern after the Bergen win was how were we going to respond,” Karam said. “I think we were a little flat [against Blair] and they out wrestled us. The great thing about this event is that we get to learn. We want to win a state championship and that’s why we come to events like this.”

After wrestling top-tier competition over the weekend, the Hawks now prep for their final two dual meets of the regular season this week before next Saturday’s (Jan. 30) East Penn Conference crossover day where the Hawks will likely take on a very good Nazareth (9-0) team.

This week, however, they wrestle Northampton (5-5) on Wednesday night, followed by a Thursday showdown at Dieruff (8-7).

“We’re looking forward to the Northampton match because they got some real good kids at their lighter weights that are really going to challenge us,” said Karam. “The following week, we’re excited about the EPC crossover because Nazareth looks for real. They’ve been wrestling really well and we’re looking forward to finishing this regular season strong.”