HOLLY SPRINGS — If there appeared to be some awkwardness in the opening of Holly Springs' senior night ceremonies, you'd have to forgive them this once — the school has never done it before.

Even more importantly, the school had never gotten out to a 13-4 start, something it can now claim after taking down Knightdale 54-19 on Wednesday night.

Ten of the Golden Hawk wrestlers picked up wins — including eight pins — as the inaugural senior night that was three years in making went according to coach Greg Tuttle's plan.

"Three years ago they took a lot of losses. They were sophomores and one, maybe two had ever wrestled before," Tuttle said. "So to win like this and we're 13-4 and 5-1 in the conference, to have that kind of season with one kid with experience three years ago, they've come a long way and they've worked really hard."

Tuttle added, that even during the early days, he knew the school had a chance to be competitive.

"I knew it would take some work," Tuttle said. "Nothing's given, but I thought we would be this far."

Holly Springs' 103-pounder Matt Hannah, a freshman, opened up the match with a pin at 3:56, but it was answered with another pin, also at 3:56, by Knightdale's Drew Lopez at 112 pounds.

From there, however, it was all Golden Hawks. Matt Watson (119 pounds), Alex Lee (125), Jake Reinemund (130) and Alex Javidi (135) rattled off a string of four consecutive pins for Holly Springs, opening up a 30-6 lead.

The Knights picked up three wins the rest of the way with the victories coming from Antoine McLean (140), who won 13-2, Nick McClellan (160), who won 8-4, and Sean Mason (215), who scored a pin at 4:28.

In their last home meet ever, seniors Alex Dolan (171), Torrance Porter (189) and Quinn Eberle (285) all added pins to complete to rout.

Eberle said the seniors, none of whom lost a match on Wednesday, had been looking forward to their final home match for three weeks.

After three years of improving and practicing together, the Hawks' senior class is a tightly-knit group.

"You've got to build a friend who's close to your weight who's going to push you," Eberle said. "Me and my friend Cheeseburger, Anthony Samperisi, we push each other every practice and we just seem to have gotten better. And I just know we're both going to Regionals and possibly states this year."

Also winning for the Hawks were seniors Eric Donovan (145) who won 10-5 and Jake Filip (152), who won 12-5. "We play multiple sports together. I think we've all played football at one point in time, and wrestling has kept us close," Eberle said. "We all hang out, we're a pretty tight unit."

The Hawks have two more conference duals left, with Smithfield-Selma and Garner on the horizon. At 5-1, a strong finish could lead into another program first — a conference championship.