BETHEL — The ball keeps rolling for Washington wrestling. The Pam Pack grapplers showed plenty of resolve in winning the 25th annual Pierce-Davis Memorial Tournament at North Pitt on Saturday.

Five wrestlers battled back from losses in the double-elimination tournament to win third place. Two others — D.K. Credle and Mitchell Cobb — placed second, and Drew Ferguson remained undefeated to win first place in the 195-pound division.

“Teenage minds, they lose and they think they should be in the finals. Once that’s out of the way, sometimes guys shut down,” coach Chris Penhollow said. “It shows a lot about the maturity of a lot of our kids.”

Penhollow said that he and the wrestlers always talk beforehand about having a shot to either win a tournament or finish high. They go over what has to happen, laying out a plan for success.

He’s confident in his team, as he should be considering the early-season success, but knew they faced challenges over the weekend. Two starters were out taking the S.A.T. Washington’s 184-pound wrestler had to leave the team, so the Pam Pack didn’t even have anyone wrestling in that weight class.

“You’ve got two backups and an empty weight class. I didn’t think we’d be able to pull it out,” he said. “It shows a lot for those to bear down, wrestle back and get third place. I think everybody was first, second or third, except for three.”

One of those lesser finishes was a bit of a fluke. Jacob Smith, a team captain and a starter in the 132-pound class, wrestled a familiar Fike opponent in Raesae Steeles.

“It was a great match, 3-3, and Jacob tried to force something at the end. The kid got a takedown to beat him to go to the finals,” Penhollow said. “Then he wrestles back and gets to the consolation finals. He is beating the brakes off (Northeastern’s Jonathan Ward). He’s up 14-5. They get into some crazy roll and the kid catches (Smith) in a cradle and pins him.”

Penhollow put a little stock into being able to scout 2-A Eastern Plains Conference competition in North Pitt, but was primarily focused in the experience of seeing better opponents.

“We were just excited to get some hard competition,” he said. “We’ve got to get as many matches against tough kids as we can.”

There’s no shortage of challenging matches ahead. After traveling to Northern Nash on Wednesday, the Pam Pack will head to Croatan this weekend for the Beast of the East tournament. Still ahead, too, is the WRAL Invitational.

“We get these two back-to-back weekends in, then we host our dual-team tournament here on Dec. 30,” Penhollow said. “In January, we’ve got something every weekend. They’re rolling good. They’re coming along.”

Penhollow said Credle will not be with the team for the trip to Croatan as he will be taking the A.C.T.

Washington proved it can overcome bumps in the road, though. Penhollow has a good understanding of the team’s strengths. He highlighted transfer Carson Asby as one of the team’s standouts this season. He was seeded fifth in the 120-pound division, and the four ahead of him all placed at last season’s state championship. He finished third.

Washington has made its objective this season to get over the hump when it comes to the postseason. Judging by Saturday’s showing, the Pam Pack is well on its way to doing just that.