The Liberty Hurricanes captured their first league wrestling title since 1986 by winning the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference championship with a 33-26 win over Nazareth Saturday night at Easton Middle School.

Head coach Jody Karam reflected on the first league championship of his 26-year Liberty tenure.

“Before we got on the bus today we took them into the gym and we looked at the banners. I showed the guys the banner and I said, ‘Tonight’s a nice night to update that banner guys. Thirty-three years is a long time.’ We’ll enjoy tonight, but we know the season doesn’t end tonight. This is what makes Lehigh Valley wrestling great. There’s four teams that can beat each other on any given night.”

Liberty also avenged its only loss of the season to a PA school, a 26-26 criteria loss to the Blue Eagles at the Virginia Duals two weeks earlier.

In Virginia, Nazareth had the advantage after the first seven bouts, 17-10. This time the score at the halfway point was 14-14. Only one of the early bouts was a rematch, where Matt Maloney again won by decision over Andrew Smith at 120 pounds.

Conner Werner won a 6-4 decision at 106.

Tal-Reese Flemming, who didn’t wrestle in Virginia, surrendered an early takedown and then proceeded to run off the next 18 points on his way to a tech fall at 113.

Mike Torres held Sean Pierson to three team points at 126.

Travis Brown picked up a 5-4 decision by scoring a third-period reversal and riding his opponent out for the last 1:30 of the bout at 132.

The turning point in the match occurred at 160 pounds. Nazareth had just seized momentum by scoring 17 team points in the three preceding bouts, including a fall at 152 to take a 20-14 lead. Alex Cruz trailed 1-0 entering the third period and started on the bottom. The cheers from the Blue Eagle’s side of the gym rose to a crescendo as it appeared that Joe Capobianco had applied a cradle.

Cruz said how he turned the bout and the match around.

“I thought that the cradle was real loose, so I just tried to roll through it and ended up with him on his back and me having to secure the pin for my team,” Cruz said.

With the match tied at 20-20 with five bouts remaining, Liberty just needed to replicate their performance at those weights at the Virginia Duals where they outscored Nazareth by a 12-6 margin. All five bouts were rematches.

At 170, Joshua Talijan secured his second decision over Tommy Manos, this time by a 5-3 margin.

Nazareth won the 182-pound class by decision for the second time.

Damen Moyer once again dominated his bout at 195 but had to settle for a major decision instead of the fall he achieved in Virginia.

At 220, Jake Ahmad was once again on the wrong side of a 4-3 decision when Stephen Schott scored a takedown with 23 seconds left in the third.

Jaden Freeman ended the match in style when he turned the one-point margin in the team score to seven with a third-period fall.

This weekend Liberty will look to add a new trophy to the case as it pursues its first District XI Dual Meet Team Championship title in the 22nd year of that tournament’s existence.

On Thursday at 7:30 in their home gym, the Hurricanes quarterfinal opponent will be the winner between Emmaus and Freedom. If the teams hold true to form, Liberty will face now-familiar foe Nazareth in the semifinals Saturday at 10:45 a.m. at Freedom HS. Becahi and Northampton seem destined to meet in the other semifinal. The championship final will take place at 5:30 p.m.