BRIGHTON — With Hartland’s wrestling team trailing 25-22 to Howell, the Eagles needed shift in momentum.

Enter freshman Anthony Colaianne, who after being inserted in the line-up at 130 pounds, pinned Dean Hankala in 57 seconds, sending the score to 28-25. Hartland never looked back, winning 40-25 over the Highlanders during a quad at Brighton High School.

“He’s wrestled that kid like four times growing up,” Hartland head coach Todd Cheney said. “We knew that was a good matchup for us, so we put him in and bumped Ross up and bumped (Keith) Boldt below. We had good matchups from 25 to 45 to finish.”

Said Colaianne: “I feel really good. I felt like I did hand fighting really well. We also had a little more cheering than normal (during the dual); sometimes we’re not into the matches as much as we should be.”

Hartland also wrestled Grand Blanc, which it shut out 74-0. The Eagles are now 18-2 overall, and 4-0 in the Kensington Lakes Athletic Association West.

Freshman Austin Eicher recorded his 19th consecutive pin in the second dual of the night, and a total of 14 pins were racked up during both duals.

“We’ve had a good rivalry with Howell for a long time,” Cheney said. “We go back and forth; those guys are great coaches and great individuals, and it’s fun in that dual meet. It kind of gives me a heart attack every time we wrestle them, but it’s fun to be in that dual meet. It's been a lot of fun wrestling Howell, and I’m sure it will be for a long time.”

As far as rivals go, Howell is one of the prominent ones, along with Brighton, who the Eagles take on 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at Hartland High School.

“We’ve gotta win the close matches,” Cheney said. “A couple of our close matches in that Howell dual we lost; an overtime match and a one point match. To win big duals, we need to win those matches at the end when it matters. We did the same thing against Lowell.”

The Eagles are at home this weekend for the Hartland team tournament at 8:30 a.m., where Cheney says there will be a lot of good teams, like Romeo who made it to team state last year, Holly, Bay City Central, and Lake Orion, who has made it to the team state semi-finals twice.