After being shut out by Fairfield earlier this season, Hamilton’s goal going into its Division I Region 7 Team Tournament matchup Wednesday was simply to narrow the gap between the two programs.

The Big Blue got it done — barely. In the last match of the night, HHS senior Robbie Parker put together a 9-1 major-decision win over Fairfield junior Logan Kolas in the 285-pound match to avert an Indians sweep.

“We were trying to keep it close, but they’d won every match,” Parker said. “We all did our best.”

“Every time we wrestle them, it’s to our benefit,” Hamilton coach Nick Hensley said. “We’re happy to face tough competition. Some of the kids achieved what we wanted them to achieve. Some of them came up a little short.

“Robbie needed that win with the (Greater Miami Conference) and sectionals coming up,” Hensley added. “Every win is big at this time of year.”

The top-seeded Indians got nine pins on their way to a 71-4 win, which pushed them to a quarterfinal match against fifth-seeded Springboro next Wednesday at Fairfield Middle School. Springboro advanced with a 40-27 win over fourth-seeded Lakota West Wednesday at Fairfield. Freshman Andrew Acuna at 126, junior Kevin Leonhardt at 152 and sophomore Jackson Smith at 182 logged the Firebirds’ only non-forfeit wins.

Indians coach Ron Masanek was happy with his team’s focus.

“You never want to fall asleep,” he said. “You always hope they’re ready to go. You don’t want to get careless. We saw some things we have to correct, and we have some time to correct them. It’s going to get tougher as we go on.”

The winners of Wednesday’s matches at Mason between third-seeded Lakota East and sixth-seeded Edgewood and second-seeded Mason and seventh-seeded Lebanon will wrestle in another quarterfinal. The quarterfinal winners will meet the same night in the regional semifinals.

The Region 7 championship match is scheduled for Feb. 6 at a site to be determined.

Hamilton got help from ninth-seeded Kings forfeiting five matches to win its first-round match, 48-33, Wednesday. Pins by sophomore Brendan Jackson at 120, freshman Daniel Ramirez at 126 and sophomore Rickardo Harris at 145 helped HHS pull out the win.