CARY - Whether it was an offseason workout, a summer training session or weekend tournament, the Cary wrestlers had kept last season's loss to Panther Creek near the forefront of their minds ever since falling to the Catamounts on Feb. 2, 2011.

It was then that Cary’s streaks of 409 straight home regular-season wins, 20 years without a loss to a conference opponent and 27 years of conference championships were all snapped, thanks to a Catamounts victory in the final bout.

The Imps wanted their conference back. Thanks to a furious late rally, Cary can try to start a new streak of conference titles as it won at Panther Creek 40-28 on Wednesday night.

“A conference championship this year means more than it ever has. I wanted to avenge our loss,” Cary senior Bo Mulligan said. “After our streak was snapped, it was all the more motivation to get this team together and be as good as we have the potential to be. Even though it was sad to lose our streak, I think it helped us in the long run.”

Cary, which still has two more Tri-Nine Conference dual matches against Green Hope and Athens Drive remaining, was down 25-12 with six bouts to go. But the Imps won five of those last six bouts with four coming by pin. The two sides were tied at 28 with two bouts left when Cary junior Franklin McNamara (170 pounds) clinched the match with a pinfall three minutes and five seconds into his match. McNamara’s heroics even surprised Cary coaches, who were hopeful for a win – just not a pin.

“We were counting on a win there,” Cary coach Taylor Cummings said. “But when were sitting down figuring out what we were going to do and what we could give up, we had figured just a decision there at best.”

Panther Creek could’ve tied if Kofi Sackey was able to score a pin in his final bout, and the Catamounts would have won the match based on an eighth tiebreaking criteria of “total match points.” Aside from pins – which were even at four apiece – Panther Creek edged Cary 25-19 in total match points.

McNamara was down 5-0 early in the first period before he turned the tide of the match. As he tried to get his pin, both teams and both sides of the gym screamed for their side.

“At first I tried a move I wasn’t really familiar with, so I got in a tricky situation. I said while I was on my back ‘I’m not going to get pinned right now.’ And I just started to turn it around,” McNamara said. “He tried to roll me, so I caught his arm and sat back with it.”

Cary’s Travis Bach closed out the match with a pin of Sackey in the 182-pound match, leaving no doubt as to who the winner was.

Panther Creek got off to a fast start by earning a 5-0 win from heavyweight Mike Sutton, pin at the 3:20 mark by 106-pounder Saurya Neupane, pin by 113-pounder Nathan Allison at 2:48, a 10-0 win by 126-pounder Joe Faustyn and a pin at 2:50 by Kevin Ruiz.

Cary was happy that it had prevented Sutton from getting a pin, but Ruiz had defeated one of the Imps’ better wrestlers in John Blackwell to negate the advantage.

The Imps had early wins from 220-pounder Corey Daniels, who won 5-1; 120-pounder Ryan Foran, who won 4-2; and 135-pounder Alex Ynoquio, who won by pin at the 3:09 mark.

“I think we have the ability to beat Cary,” Panther Creek coach Jon Armfield said. “It just comes down to positioning and staying off your back.”

The inabilty for Panther Creek wrestlers to stay off their backs is what allowed Cary’s rally to begin.

Freshman Mark Mulligan (145) needed just 38 seconds to pin his opponent. Two bouts later -- after wins by Panther Creek’s Collin Higgins and Cary’s Adam Kugler -- Mark’s older brother Bo needed just 90 seconds for his pin.

“Those dang Mulligans. I feel like I’m going to have to cut them a royalty check at the end of the season for all they do for us in the dual meets," said Cummings. “They put us in the driver’s seat every time.”

Bo Mulligan’s pin set up a chance for McNamara’s victory, which led to Bach’s before culminating in a redeeming win for a program that wants to regain the conference title.