PARKERSBURG — Nationally-ranked Parkersburg South, rated 26th by InterMat, will look to continue its dominant ways when the Patriots of head coach Shaun Smith head inside Memorial Fieldhouse this evening to square off against rival Parkersburg in the annual city dual. Weigh-ins are slated for 6 p.m. today with junior varsity matches following and then the big showdown getting underway sometime around 7 p.m. Parkersburg South’s Luke Martin is the only grappler who is seeking a fourth career victory in the dual from either side of the river. Ironman champion Braxton Amos, who will make his first appearance in the dual, is expected to receive a forfeit at 220 as the Big Reds of head man Matt Littleton have been unable to fill that weight class. “It’s the only class we don’t have anybody,” said Littleton, who is excited to see how some of the matches shake out tonight, but also noted he could move a few guys around here and there. “We’ve been forfeiting it all year and we’ll continue I guess to do without.” The Patriots are coming off another championship performance this past weekend at the Ohio Valley Athletic Conference where coach Smith’s squad broke their own tournament record for scoring. “Everyone came out all right,” Smith said of being injury free from the OVAC. “We had a great weekend. The kids wrestled extremely well and I was really proud of them.” “We lost some matches that I feel like we shouldn’t have. Obviously, that happens in a big tournament. The main thing is to learn from it and hopefully get better.” Although PSHS has dominated the dual in recent campaigns, Littleton knows the first battle between the two programs this winter could be critical for regional seeding. “Obviously, we are going to run into some guys and some of the matches we are going to have with them could end up being state finals matches,” noted the Big Red boss, who pointed to a trio of matches which should take place this evening — at 138 with John Martin Best (PHS) going against Martin, at 145 with Stephen Carder (PHS) facing Zach Collins and at 132 with Big Red Bo Moler facing off versus Gavin Quiocho. “You know, it’s our rival and you always want to beat your rival and be competitive with them, but I wake up every morning just trying to get our guys better every single day, not how am I going to beat South. I know it’s a big match and I know we want to win, but in the big picture, we just want to get better every day and everything else will fall in place. I’ve stressed to our kids to just go out there and get in the fight. Have some pride. Don’t be getting pinned, get hand control, fight and obviously continue to get better every day. That’s our goal.” For coach Smith, “I think we realize we that we don’t wrestle them again until regional and they understand the importance. As far as that goes, I think that no matter what, I don’t have to get the kids up for this type of match. They want to dominate as bad as I want them to. Hopefully, we are able to get out there and do it and achieve it. “The regional stuff is obviously part of it, but they probably want to beat us as bad as we want to beat them. Fortunately, for us, at this point, I feel like things are going more our way and there are some good matchups, some potential championship finals matchups that could happen on Wednesday. You don’t have to get them up too much for this match. I think they already understand the impact of the match.”