The Bainbridge Island varsity wrestling team took the visitors from Ballard to the mat hard Tuesday in the squad’s first home meet of the season and won a decisive 36-18 victory.

Though forfeits marked the lowest and upper weight classes for both teams, BHS claimed the win through several key pins in the middle weight range.

Double forfeits negated the 106-, 113-, 195- and 220-pound matches.

Bainbridge scored some easy early points as Cade Topham (120-pounds), Myron Butler (126) and Bo Baird (132) each claimed a win by forfeit right off the bat.

Then, despite a valiant effort, Greg Williams lost what turned out to be one of the evening’s most exciting matches. He was pinned by Ballard’s Tristrom Fetters in 5:09, making for a Spartan loss in the 138-pound class.

Mario Rowe was also pinned by Ballard’s Chris White in 1:23 in the 145-pound match.

Hague Bush swung things back around for the home team and pinned Ballard’s Brian Shinn in 1 minute flat for a BHS win in the 152-pound class.

Aaron Jumpa earned a victory by forfeit in the 160-pound match.

Then, in the 170-pound match, Bainbridge’s Liam Topham pinned Carlos Lopez Alvarez in 1:37.

The current Spartan heavyweight and team co-captain Joaquin Gurza claimed a forfeit win in the 182-pound match.

Ballard brought the heaviest contender of the evening, however, and claimed a forfeit win in the 285-pound match through Adam Deehring.

Spartan Head Coach Dan Pippinger said that a match victory at home was — of course — nice, but that the team didn’t place a lot of emphasis on this type of competition and that he found it much more beneficial overall to focus on the tournaments the team would travel to throughout the season.

“It’s hard to measure, really, with so few matches what’s really happening,” Pippinger explained of the evening.