Dave Crowell has won 474 wrestling matches as a head coach.

But he knows No. 475 may be the hardest of all to get when his Nazareth squad meets Bethlehem Catholic for the PIAA 3A team title Saturday at 1 p.m. at Hershey’s Giant Center.

 “I thought we wrestled very well (in the 33-24 win over the Golden Hawks in the District 11 final Feb. 4),” Crowell said. “But I think we’re going to have wrestle 10 percent better to beat them this time.”

That may not be humanly possible. The Blue Eagles’ display of smarts, intensity, skill, passion, strength and intensity in that D-11 final made for one of the most comprehensively impressive team efforts in a dual in quite some time in the lehighvalleylive region.

Such efforts don’t come together very often, as Crowell knows. And he also knows that beating a powerhouse team such as Becahi twice – after showing his hand in the D-11 final – makes for a complicated task.

“Ideally, we’d have lost the first two and then won this one,” he said.

Nazareth fans may not agree – they reveled in that win over Becahi and would not, one suspects, trade in the D-11 trophy for tactical advantage Saturday – but Crowell, who sees the big picture as well as any man in the sport, may well have a point.

After all, beating the Golden Hawks in the D-11 final certainly got Becahi’s attention. Golden Hawks coach Jeff Karam vowed a rededication of effort and focus and noted the loss may have been just what his team needed.

From the way Becahi has wrestled in Hershey, Karam may have been right.

His team demolished alleged threats to them such as WPIAL powers Kiski Area and North Allegheny by a combined 88-41 and looking much more energetic, engaged and, it must be said, enraged – than in districts. That Kiski win was especially impressive, grinding out tough win after tough win against a really balanced and deep team.

Nazareth may well need Crowell’s extra 10 percent when the whistle blows Saturday.

Still, a lineup filled with potential Supermen such as freshman Andrew Cerniglia (106), junior Sammy Sasso (145-152), senior Brock Wilson (152-160) and senior Travis Stefanik (182-195) could well fly over any Kryptonite Becahi manages to deploy. Becahi has its superheroes too in seniors Mikey Labriola (170) and Niko Camacho (285), but the Blue Eagles may have more star power.

In one concrete sense, though, Crowell is absolutely right. Nazareth will need to be some percentage better because Becahi absolutely will be some percentage better than last time because of the return to the team of senior 132-pounder Luke Carty.

Carty makes Bethlehem Catholic better, just as the return of Cerniglia to Nazareth between the 40-20 loss to the Golden Hawks in Jan. 28’s EPC final made the Blue Eagles (a whole lot) better.

How much better is the issue. It’s true, Carty isn’t Cerniglia. One veteran observer of 3A wrestling shrugged off Carty’s return and still picked Nazareth. “Carty doesn’t make that much of a difference,” he said.

That may be so if you draw the Nazareth base-line, so to speak, at the Feb. 4 level.

But if the Blue Eagles’ level slips below the perfect storm that was the D-11 championship, the question is: how far does it have to slip before Carty does make the difference? After all, Nazareth got a match-changing fall at 132 last time. Carty is unlikely to be pinned – in fact he’s likely to win – and there’s no way to quantify the massive surge of emotion that boosted Nazareth after Ian Pulli’s dramatic decking.

Now, if Crowell finds a way for the Blue Eagles to wrestle 10 percent better than they did in the D-11 final, then a) Becahi could bring back Ziad Haddad, Darian Cruz and Luke Karam and still not win; b) every coach of the year award within 500 miles of Chocolate World USA should be sent to Crowell right now and c) Nazareth will have its first state dual title since 2007 (Crowell would have 4; he also won at Wilson in 2001 and 2002).

But something much simpler than effort levels and the like may well make the difference in what should be an epic match: the coin flip.

This is especially ironic given that Crowell dislikes the flip and wants to get rid of it. But if he gets the coin flip, he wins, pretty much. If Becahi gets it, Crowell’s lineup wizards, his assistants Adam Colombo and Joe Provini, will have the project of a lifetime to deal with.

“I told them they had all Friday night and Saturday morning to come up with something,” said Crowell with a laugh after Friday night’s semifinal win over Council Rock South.

Maybe they will – don’t ever underestimate Nazareth’s ability to pull lineup rabbits out of a pretty rugged hat.

The temptation, coin flip or no, is to say that the state final between two of the great Lehigh Valley powers will come down to the wire, be an all-time classic, etc. etc.

But history says that is unlikely. Of the 36 PIAA team finals there have been since 1999, only nine have been decided by under 10 points, Some variation on 38-26 or so seems to be the typical result.

This time, though, the teams are of such quality and so evenly matched it may be different. If Crowell finds that 10 percent improvement go with Nazareth by a hair. If he doesn’t, Becahi could well win the rubber match.

Whichever way it goes, though, it’s likely to be a final no District 11 fan will ever forget.

Brad Wilson may be reached at bwilson@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @bradwsports. Find Lehigh Valley high school sports on Facebook.

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