Northampton maxed out their District Duals weekend with five matches, but the K-Kids came up short in their bid to qualify for the PIAA tournament with a 46-14 loss to Bethlehem Catholic in Saturday’s “true second place” match at Freedom.

After battling with the likes of Nazareth and Becahi in the regular season, the Kids couldn’t overcome either program at the District 11 tournament, falling to Nazareth in the semifinals by a 40-23 margin and then running out of gas against Becahi in Saturday’s final match of the tournament.

“I think we matched up well with Nazareth but for the second time in a row, they won the close matches we needed in order to win,” said head coach Seth Lisa. “They are one of the top teams in the country and we had our opportunities. You gotta take advantage of opportunities when it comes because who knows when you can get a chance like that again. Bethlehem Catholic and Nazareth are very talented and we give them credit for terrific seasons.”

Nazareth, who ended up defeating Becahi for the district title, took the close bouts in Saturday’s semifinals with Sean Pierson topping Logan Ninos 3-0 at 113 and Brock Wilson equaling that score at 152 over Devon Britton, followed by Zac Keifer (182) and Tucker Klump (195) picking up 7-2 and 3-2 decisions respectively for the Blue Eagles, while Cade Moisey (170) sat out the entire day of competition on Saturday with an injury to compound matters.

Still, Northampton (14-4) came back to defeat Freedom 44-22 and Easton 39-29 in the consolation round before being eliminated by the Hawks.

It was always going to be an uphill climb for the Kids to reach the PIAA tournament in a year with the stacked teams that Becahi and Nazareth have, but Lisa looks back positively on what they were able to accomplish, considering their only losses this season came to the aforementioned victors above.

“I think our kids did a great job this season,” Lisa said. “We fell short of our team goal but I believe we improved all season and our guys learned a lot about themselves.

“Our program has been experiencing a lot of success from our feeder programs at the junior high up to high school. We’ve had tremendous support from our friends, family and student body. We packed our gym multiple times this season and we couldn’t be happier by the amount of support we’ve received from our school district and our community. Everyone has come together to support these young men and we feel very privileged.”

The Kids now have 19 days off before the District 11 individual postseason takes place on February 24 and 25.

“This is a long break before we get to individual districts,” said Lisa. “Our hope is to get some hard training in and hopefully get everyone healthy moving forward. The goal for us is to win districts. These kids proved we can compete and now it’s time to try and get it done.”