HERSHEY — Butler's Cole Baxter and Grove City's Wesley Phipps and Caleb Kolb each recorded first-round victories in their respective classifications at the PIAA Wrestling Championships at the Giant Center Thursday.

Baxter, the WPIAL Class AAA champion, improved to 43-0 by earning a 5-1 decision over Northeast Catholic's Matt Dugan.

"Cole rode (Dugan) for about 48 seconds in the second period, then he escaped on the restart to go up 1-0, then Cole took him down with five seconds left," said Butler coach Scott Stoner.

"Cole took some shots but got another shot in with about 40 seconds left in the third. Toward the end it looked like Cole was going to turn him, but he just rode it out," Stoner added.

Baxter will square off against Northampton's Shane Fenningham (23-6) in Friday's quarterfinals.

"(Fenningham) finished fifth at 135 last year," said Stoner. "He's a big, strong, physical kid. ... We're right where we want to be. Cole was a little tight. We talked after the first period and, as the match went along, he got better."

In Class AA, Phipps, a freshman, posted a 9-0 major decision over Charleroi's Tommy Thorpe in the 160-pound class. Phipps will move on to face Lewisburg's Eric Hummel (32-4).

Kolb (36-0) pinned Beth-Center's Cody Catalina in 3:08 in the 171-pound bout to advance to the quarterfinals as well. He will face Lancaster Catholic's Michael Blaszczyk (39-2).

The Eagles also had Nick Miller (189) and Johnny Pas (112) competing in the tournament.

Miller (29-4) was pinned by Schuylkill Valley's Pat Leavitt in 1:14, but avoided elimination by taking an 11-10 overtime tiebreaking decision over Tamaqua's Garth Latitsky in the first-round consolation.

Miller will face the loser of Friday's quarterfinal match between Commodore Perry's Tim DeFrances (33-6) and Line Mountain's Jon Fausey (41-0).

Pas (31-6) was eliminated when he was pinned by Athens' David White in 5:15, then was pinned by Milton Hershey's Nick Lamoreaux at 1:46 in the first-round consolations.

Today's quarterfinals and second-round consolations will begin at 1 p.m.