Thursday's preliminary round of the PIAA Class AAA wrestling championships at Hershey's Giant Center is in the books.
Here are some notes from a round that was largely predictable:
**Looking for major upsets? Keep looking. There weren't any.
A couple of third-place finishers from last season, North Allegheny's Domenic Forys and Bethlehem Liberty's Grimaldi Gonzalez, were beaten.
Forys (39-4) lost to Pennridge's Scott Parker (33-1), in a 113-pound matchup of two evenly matched competitors.
Parker, who was fourth at 106 last season, beat Forys 10-7.
And Gonzalez came up short against Canon-McMillan's rugged Dalton Macri, losing 7-1 at 120. Macri was fourth at 113 last season, Gonzalez third at 120.
At 152, Central Dauphin's Austin Rose dominated Pocono Mountain East's Raymond Nicosia, winning by technical fall (16-0) in 3:36.
Rose is at a tough District 3 weight. He finished third behind Chambersburg's Garrett Hammond and Cumberland Valley's T.C. Warner.
Nicosia placed sixth at 145 last season.
**Council Rock North senior John Dutrow improved to 39-0 with a 5-0 victory over DuBois' Garrett Brown in the 138 prelims.
The win was the 150th of Dutrow's career.
**The seven returning state champions from 2012 were all victorious.
At 113, Parkland's Ethan Lizak (106 last year) registered a 3:36 pin of Gateway's A.J. Wilkins.
At 152, Chambersburg's Garrett Hammond (145 last year) won by 16-1 technical fall over Norristown's Rashon Lusane in 4:37.
At 160, two returning state champions won easily. Central Dauphin's Garrett Peppelman (152) scored a 15-5 major over General McLane's Ossie Bowers. And Kennard Dale superstar Chance Marsteller (160) needed only 42 seconds to pin Delaware Valley's Lucas Markowitz.
At 170, Canon-McMillan's Cody Wiercioch (170 last year) pinned Big Spring's Cody Seibert in 4:28.
At 195, Kiski Area's Matt McCutcheon (182) decisioned Bald Eagle Area's Aaron Varner 8-2.
And at 220, Solanco's Thomas Haines (220 last year) piled up a 16-0 technical fall over Mifflin County's Kyle Kahley in 3:27.
**Attendance for the PIAA Class AAA preliminary round at Hershey's Giant Center was 5,372.