HERSHEY - Buck Miller couldn’t have asked for a better start.

The Northwestern senior punched his ticket to the quarterfinals at the PIAA Wrestling Championships on Thursday with a pair of victories.

After a pin in his first match, Miller rode that momentum into a 7-6 win over Honesdale’s Paul Renner in his 189-pound Class 2A first round bout.

Miller was 0-2 at last year’s state tournament. He lost two close bouts, falling to Bald Eagle Area’s Caleb Close 1-0, and Jalen Wagner of Reynolds 5-2.

He made sure those outcomes wouldn’t happen again.

“Definitely a lot more confident,” Miller said of his match with Renner. “I knew I was in a good position, just from the start of the tournament. I started off strong because I had all the confidence in the world from my first match.”

It showed early, as Miller (33-9) secured a takedown in the first 20 seconds to build a 2-0 lead.

The advantage increased to 6-2 in the second period as Miller added two more takedowns.

“It was very important,” said Miller. “I knew if I could get a few takedowns and try to get a lead, I would be OK. It definitely started to close towards the end, almost cost me the match. But that’s something I’ve been working on all year, and I’m getting better at it.”

After Miller got an escape with 1:23 left in the third period, Renner (34-11) got a point on a stalling call.

Renner, the Northeast Regional champion, got another stalling point with 0:07 left, and two points when Miller was hit for stalling again with 0:03 remaining to make it 7-6.

“I was a little mad at myself for giving up all those stall calls,” said Miller. “It definitely was just bad wrestling on my part. But if he choose bottom, or was on his feet it wouldn’t have mattered. I knew I had it.”

And he did. Miller kept Renner down off the whistle with three seconds left to secure the win.

“He’s flowing a little more,” Tigers coach Joe Killar said of Miller. “He shut it down a little in the last match too early, I wish he wouldn’t (have), because instead of beating that kid by a point he could have won by 10 or so. But he got by, which is all you need to do here.”

Miller will wrestle General McLane’s Magnus Lloyd (30-8) in the quarterfinals. Lloyd was the Northwest Regional runner-up and has a record of 30-8 and is making his first appearance at states.

“I just have to win one more and I place,” said Miller. “That’s where my mind’s at right now.”

Killar is hoping for more than just making it to the final eight for Miller.

“His goal was to place at states, and he’s got to win one more match to do it,” said the coach. “Hopefully he can do a little better than just place, but we’ll see.”

After receiving a forfeit in his 160-pound preliminary round match, Northwestern freshman Luke Fugazzotto got his feet wet in the first round against Laurel’s Grant MacKay, who posted a 15-7 major decision.

MacKay (44-1), the Southwest Regional champion who was a state champion in 2021 and a runner-up a year ago, registered three takedowns in the first period and built a 6-2 lead with Fugazzotto getting points on a pair of escapes.

“I knew he was a better guy, and I wasn’t as confident in my shots and things like that,” said Fugazzotto. “But I feel like if I would have committed a bit more, I probably would have got them.”

In the second period, MacKay again scored two takedowns with Fugazzotto’s two escape points making it 10-4. But Fugazzotto secured a reversal with 0:37 remaining in the period before a MacKay escape made it 11-6 heading to the third period.

“I didn’t really mind it,” Fugazzotto said of MacKay letting him up off the whistle. “I felt like I was doing good in neutral, so it wasn’t that bad. I felt like I would have done better in neutral, rather than him being on top.”

Fugazzotto (36-9) had a takedown opportunity near the edge of the mat in the third period, which would have cut the deficit to 11-8, but couldn’t quite finish it.

“After the match, the coaches talked about what I could have done better, and I agree with them,” said Fugazzotto. “Maybe I could have gotten a takedown or two. But that experience will help me.”

MacKay added two more takedowns in the period with Fugazzotto getting another point off an escape.

“There’s not going to be many kids better than him that he just wrestled,” Killar said of MacKay, who is committed to the University of Pittsburgh. “I thought he wrestled well, he just wrestled someone that was a little better than him today. There’s no shame in how he wrestled. I thought he did a good job. I thought he had a takedown (in the third period). But he wrestled well. He was going at it.”

Fugazzotto will wrestle Milton’s Alex Hoffman (33-9) in a second round consolation match this morning. Hoffman is the Northeast Regional runner-up and won both his district and sectional tournaments.

“I’m just going to try and wrestle like I just did tomorrow, and I think I’ll be fine,” said Fugazzotto.

So does Killar.

“I’m just excited that the kids are getting there,” he said. “We’ll see if we can get a couple more wins or maybe more than that for both of them and bring home some medals. I think we can do it.”

BACK AGAIN

... Class 2A action resumes today with quarterfinals and second round consolations at 9 a.m. today, followed by third round consolations at 11:45. The 2A semifinals and fourth round consolations will be held Friday night at 7:30 p.m., with the fifth round consolations to follow at 9:30.