DELPHOS — The St. John’s Blue Jays rallied from a 24-4 deficit to the Lima Central Catholic Thunderbirds to defeat the T-Birds 34-30 in a triangular wrestling meet on “The Vatican” mats Wednesday evening.

Allen East’s Mustangs downed the Jays 46-21 and the Mustang grapplers downed LCC 45-27 in the other matches.

“We bumped Brian Merschman up to 112 and Brian Backus up to 171 against LCC,” a happy St. John’s coach Devin Dempsey stated. “We both had injuries and illnesses, so we juggled our lineups to get the wrestlers as many matches as possible.”

Tremulous won by forfeit at 215 to give the T-Birds a 24-4 edge. Jeff Fritz pinned Shanahan with 1:08 left in the first.

“Jeff is wrestling well,” Dempsey observed.

There were double forfeits at the 103-, 119-, 125- and 130-pound classifications.

At 112, Merschman pinned Patterson with :49 showing in the first.

At 135, Zach Reindel pinned Adam Geiger with a mere 1.3 seconds left in the second period. At 140, Blue Jay Eric Neumeier pinned LCC’s Nick Hahn at the 33.8-second mark of the second. At 140, in the deciding match, Tony DeWitt pinned Nick Heingardner with a mere :40.7 remaining in the contest.

Kayatin (152) and McCormick (160) won by forfeit for the guests

At 171, Brian Backus registered a 14-2 major decision over LCC’s Thomason but Chris O’Brien pinned St. John’s Jeff Michel at 189 with 1:11 to go in the second period.

“We have a camaraderie with LCC,” Dempsey stated. “We had a lot of voids because of injuries and illness. The changing weather doesn’t help. We have a lot of shoulder, knee and leg injuries. We hope to have everyone healed up for sectionals.”

In the Allen East matchup, Allen East’s 145-pounder, Dylan Ford, technical-falled DeWitt 17-2, ending the match with eight ticks remaining in the second. Jeremy Hutchinson won by forfeit at 152.

Backus trimmed Tyler Sneary 9-6 in a much-anticipated 160-pound match between the two competitors ranked in the Lima Area Wrestling Coaches’ Association poll.

“Brian and Sneary could have wrestled each other at the Allen County Invitational, at the Lima Central Catholic Invitational and at the Van Buren Invitational, but have not wrestled so far,” Dempsey said.

Allen East’s Matt Dues (171) and Dylan Burley (215) won by forfeit, sandwiched around 189-pounder Zach Stephens pinning Michel with just :48.7 remaining in the third period.

Fritz pinned Jeremy Pryer with :31.8 showing in the first period in the 285-pound classification.

At 103, Merschman pinned Jordan Kreuger with :42.4 remaining in the first period. Mustangs Garret Freeman (112), Adam Prater (119) and Trey Fisher (125) all won their matches uncontested.

“Allen East has some good athletes,” Dempsey noted. “They have a good program with a lot of kids coming out.”

There was a double void at 130. At 135, Reindel won by forfeit, as did Blue Jay Eric Neumeier at 140.

“My middleweights are good,” Allen East coach Mike Abbey stated. “Dylan Ford and Tyler Sneary are tough. My kids fight hard. My sophomores were the first guys on our first junior high school wrestling program four years ago. Our kiddie program had 45 kids out, which feeds into our junior high program and that feeds into our high school program. It’s much like the Tri-County wrestling program here in Delphos for St. John’s and Jefferson. My kids get their craziness from me. We’ll be meeting St. John’s and Lima Central Catholic in the sectional tournament and meet LCC in the Northwest Conference tournament. Voids and illnesses were the big story tonight.”

In the LCC-Allen East match: Krueger won by forfeit at 103 pounds; Freeman pinned LCC’s Patterson at 112; LCC’s White pinned Adam Prater with a minute left in the first period at 119; at 125, AE’s Fisher won by forfeit and 130 was a double forfeit; at 140, Hahn won by forfeit for LCC; Ford pinned LCC’s Hinegardner at 145; Hutchinson pinned Kayatin with just :54.7 left in the second period at 152; the 160-pound Sneary pinned McCormick with 50 seconds gone; Thomason outdueled Dues 12-5 at 171; 189-pounder Wise pinned O’Brien 1:01 into the match; at 215, Tremulous outgrappled Burley 7-5; and at 285, Pryer pinned Shanahan 1:05 into the matchup.

Allen East will journey to Sandusky to do battle with Pemberville Eastwood (1st in Division III) and host Sandusky St. Marys Central Catholic (5th).

“We picked up these matches to beef up our schedule,” Abbey added.

St. John’s will have an away match against Shawnee and Spencerville at Spencerville Tuesday.

The Thunderbirds will host Lima Senior Wednesday.