You can say that Devon Britton made the weekend for Northampton’s wrestling team at the PIAA championships in Hershey.

Britton wrestled his best of the season and came home with a bronze medal finish to be the K-Kids lone medal winner from their four participants.

But it was the path that Britton took to a third-place finish that left him and his coaches ecstatic when he wrapped up his three days in Hershey with a 5-2 decision over Andrew Wert of Central Dauphin in the 132-pound medal round.

Britton went 5-1 in the tournament with his lone loss coming in the quarterfinals, an 8-4 defeat to McDowell’s Jeff Boyd, who only went on to win the state championship.

It was that type of weekend for Britton, who struggled through a fourth-place finish at districts, but rebounded for a silver medal at regionals, to ultimately being the highest District 11 finisher at his weight class in Hershey.

“He had an outstanding tournament and he really made this weekend positive for our program,” said head coach Seth Lisa. “We had a tough start with three guys go 0-2 and it’s really difficult to pull through and win because that momentum can be contagious, but Devon beat really good kids in the tournament, had the state champ on the ropes in the quarters, but he bounced back and I’m just really proud of him stepping up.”

After losing to Boyd in the quarters, Britton had to square off with East Stroudsburg South’s Patrick Gould for the third time in as many weeks in a win or go home consolation round bout. Gould topped him 10-9 in the district semifinals and then pinned him in the regional finals, but Britton wasn’t about to give him a hat trick.

Instead, he scored a third period takedown for the decisive points en route to a 3-1 victory that guaranteed him a medal and pushed him toward a bronze medal finish.

“I never placed here at Hershey and it’s a pretty good feeling,” said Britton. “I feel like the last two days of the tournament was the best I’ve ever wrestled. I knew I could always beat these kids, but you always have that doubt until you do it. After beating Gould, that definitely gave me a lot of confidence.”

As mentioned earlier, the Kids brought four wrestlers out to Hershey, but three of them were eliminated on day one of competition, as Logan Ninos (120), Jagger Condomitti (126) and Michael Kistler (145) each lost their first two bouts of the tournament for an early exit.

With Britton (junior), Kistler (junior) and Condomitti (freshman) all being underclassmen, a return trip to Hershey for each of them should be in the cards heading into next season, but Britton’s hopes will now be higher than a third-place finish.

“I think one thing I learned this year was that I have to wrestle smarter matches and just be more patient,” he said. “I just want to build off this to work harder and get on top of the podium next year.”