By Jim O'Hara
 
ROME, Ga. – The Shorter wrestling not only held their own against the Atlantic Coast Conference, they came within a mere point of coming up with what would have been a major upset.

In their first home match of the season Saturday night at the Winthrop-King Centre, the Hawks gave one of the top programs in the ACC, the Duke Devils, all they could handle before the visitors from Durham, N.C., emerged with the narrow 19-18 decision.

"To split the 10 matches with an ACC team," Shorter head coach Josh Henson said after the match, one that was eventually decided midway through the showdown when Duke came up with a major decision, "you can't help to say it was a good performance by our guys.

"There were definitely bright spots," the coach added. "We didn't have all 10 of our guys pulling in the right direction, but they showed me that they are improving and going in the right direction."

Shorter opened the match putting the first points on the board when Ben Smith notched a 14-4 decision in his 125-pound clash with Duke's Thayer Atkins, only to see the Blue Devils even the score in the 133-pound matchup when Bailey Jack claimed a 7-6 decision over Shorter's Aldon Isenberg.

The tradeoff between the two teams continued in the next two battles, with Duke's Evan Botwin edging Shorter's Colby Rinehart in a 4-2 decision and Hawk Nate Galloway evening the score at 6-6 when he took a 10-5 decision over Joey Abbate.

But in the 157-pound clash between Shorter's Kannon Madden and Duke's Immanuel Kerr-Brown, a former Rome High standout and state champion making his first appearance in his hometown since leaving for college, Kerr-Brown emerged with a 13-1 major decision victory and the four points which wound up being the difference at the end of the night.

Duke's Jacob Faust gave his team a 13-6 lead when he posted a 2-0 decision over Wally Figaro in the 165 match, but the Hawks were far from finished.

In his 174-pound match, Shorter's Dalton Lane came up with the first pin if the night when he put Alexander Belaia-Martiniouk on his back just 1:42 into their clash and Hawk Terrence Smith gave his team a stunning 15-13 lead when he came up with a 9-3 decision against Tyler Patrick in their 184-pound showdown.

The Devils, however, responded with their first fall of the evening when Spencer Neff pinned Shorter's Kimani Nasrullah  in the 1:52 mark of the first period, giving Duke the lead back, 19-16.

Shorter's Andrew Ewers gave the Hawks their final win of the night in the final 295-pound match when he turned in a 9-4 decision over Brendan Walsh, but it was not enough to put the team over the top.

"Dalton and Terrence did what they needed to do," Henson said, "and overall this was great competition for us.

"But all the head-to-head matches we have like this one," he said, "prepares us for what the whole season points to – the tournaments and the post-season and we are going in the right direction."

Shorter, now 4-3 in dual matches, returns to the mats with a road trip to Indiana when the Hawks close out the 2014 portion of their schedule on Dec. 13 competing in the 36^th annual Midwest Classic hosted by the University of Indianapolis.