HAVELOCK — Going into this weekend, Washington’s lone loss of the season was to a strong 3-A opponent in Havelock. The boys got a chance to redeem themselves this at the Ram Duals, but it ended up being a sloppy showing.

The Pam Pack won just one of its four matches — a 49-24 victory over West Carteret. The boys suffered decisive losses to Holly Springs (53-22) and Orange (60-6). They can, however, build on taking Havelock to the limit, despite coming up short in the 40-34 loss.

Coach Chris Penhollow was aware of the challenges him and his team faced going into the weekend. Unlike a lot of other counties, Beaufort County schools aren’t allowed to hold practices during final exams. That is especially challenging in a sport like wrestling where maintaining weight is important.

“It was about how I thought it would be,” he said. “I talked to the kids on the bus on the way over, not to try to prepare them to lose, but to let them know. … They had some concerns why we would jump into an event like this against a bunch of highly ranked 3-A and 4-A opponents.”

Even in facing those external challenges, Penhollow still felt the need to embrace the opportunity to square off against some of the region’s top teams. There aren’t a lot of teams in the immediate area that will provide a strong test ahead of the postseason.

Moreover, Penhollow doesn’t want to concede the element of surprise. Scheduling strong non-conference 2-A opponents in the regular season lets the opponent gain some familiarity before a possible playoff meeting.

“It’s hard for us to get much competition at the 2-A level in the east, other than going to Croatan and Dixon,” Penhollow said. “We’re going to see them in the playoffs, so you don’t want to see them too much head-to-head. We’ve got to look elsewhere for challenging matches.

“For the most part, it was a good learning experience for us. Some of these kids are rolling along and — not all of them — some of them are feeling like they’re unbeatable. You want a little bit of that, but you also want them to not get to the point where they don’t feel like they have to work as hard in practice.”

A lot of Washington’s lineup got a bit of a wakeup call, especially in the match against Orange. Andrew Ferguson and Jacob Smith were the only two to pick up wins in that match.

“It’s tough when you’re always winning and you get smacked around like we usually do to people,” Penhollow said.

The losses won’t hinder the boys so long as they bounce back. Friday marks their last regular-season match. They’ll travel to North Pitt and will have to wrestle Farmville Central again. The Jaguars can earn a share of the regular-season Eastern Plains title with a win, but the Pam Pack will win it outright by beating them again.

Ideally, the boys will travel to Bethel with a chip on their shoulder.

“I told the guys, ‘This is a good tool to show me who has heart and who’s not going to quit when it gets tough,” Penhollow said.