The Panther wrestling squad pounced the Cougars from Southern Illinois-Edwardsville 29-19 for their first victory this season Sunday.

The before winless Panthers were able to lay the foundation to build on for the second half of the season.

“We won,” Eastern head wrestling coach Ralph McCausland said. “We had some good matches and some not so good matches, but the guys performed pretty well.”

The Panthers had a rocky start Sunday however, were able to pull together to win the match in the end.

The Heavyweights were the first to wrestle Sunday and Eastern’s Joe Gleissner was defeated 13-5 to give the Cougars an early lead.

At 125, the Panthers were forced to forfeit the match because of injury, however, Pat Dowty returned to the mats at 133 pounds to put the Panthers on the board defeating his opponent 9-4.

“Dowty wrestled fairly solid,” McCausland said.

The next two matches were not in favor of Eastern. Nick Cirrincione at 141 pounds was pinned during his match as did Chris Stevens who was pinned at 149 pounds.

Frank DeFilippis from Eastern came back in the next match to man handle his opponent and winning by technical fall in 4 minutes, 20 seconds.

The Panthers lost a very close match at 165 where Eastern’s Sam Smith lost in a 0-1 decision.

“There were some nice opportunities but he didn’t capitalize and came up short in the end,” McCausland said.

Louis Taylor came through again as he defeated No.4-ranked Zach Stevens at 174 pounds.

Senior Kyle Bracey stepped up to win by pin fall after pinning his opponent in four minutes at 184 pounds.

At 197, the Panthers were awarded points after the Cougars forfeit the match to end the competition.

“We had some ups and downs,” McCausland said. “What we need is for everyone to fire on the same day. At heavyweight and 165 there were opportunities, and we need to capitalize.”

With the season winding down the Panthers will have to build form this victory, and McCausland said that they can’t wait for breaks.

“We need to have everyone and have everyone wrestle well,” McCausland said. “We saw consistency Sunday and we need to follow that. We have to make the breaks. We can’t just wait for them.”