ROCKPORT — Coming off the podium, David Wilson needed to find ice for his sore right shoulder. The shoulder has bothered Wilson off an on all season, he said, but Saturday at the Class A North championship, the Nokomis Regional High School senior didn’t let it bother him much at all.
“It’s feeling good,” Wilson said, glancing at the shoulder still secure in a brace and wrapped.
Wilson won his second straight regional crown, taking a technical fall win over Mt. Ararat/Brunswick’s Mason Hultman with 1:04 left in the second round of their 170-pound match. Wilson was joined by Nokomis teammate Caleb Carrell — who took the 126-pound title with a 4-1 win over Windham’s Dominic Pelletier — as individual champions for the Warriors.
Host Camden Hills took the team title with 166 points. Mt. Ararat/Brunswick was second with 154.5 points, followed by Cony (115), Nokomis (112) and Oxford Hills (95). The top four finishers in each weight class move on to the state championships next Saturday at Cony High School in Augusta.
Wilson had a 15-0 lead over Hultman when he won the championship match. Between the finals and his semifinal pin over Cony’s Casey Mills, Wilson iced his ailing shoulder. The key to the win over Hultman was hitting his moves and keeping up the pace of the match, Wilson said. Winning a second regional title was a bonus.
“I really enjoy the wrestling more than winning the titles,” Wilson said.
Carrell said the finals was his first match against Pelletier, and the Windham wrestler took him by surprise.
“I didn’t expect him to be as strong as he was,” Carrell said.
In the first match of the finals, Cony’s Noah Dumas took a 9-0 win over Eric Andrews of Camden Hills. Dumas was in control of the match throughout, and while he wasn’t able to pin Andrews, Dumas felt a sense of deja vu.
“Seems like the same match every time,” Dumas said. “It’s gone all three rounds, like every time. I felt pretty good on my feet.”
In a mild upset, Mt. Blue’s Tucker Nicholas defeated Mt. Ararat/Brunswick’s Cody Holman in the 160-pound final with a pin with 40.8 seconds left in the second round. Nicholas began the day as the three seed in the 160-pound class, but an injury moved him up to second.
Nicholas wrestled the top-seeded Holman in the preseason, and remembered to be wary of Holman’s throwing ability. With that in mind, Nicholas tried to keep his distance until he felt he could wear Holman out.
“I wrestled him in preseason and he threw me a couple times but I ended up pinning him in third,” Nicholas said.
Nicholas came close to pinning Holman late in the first round, but time expired. The close call wasn’t disappointing, Nicholas said.
“I was thinking I’ve got three, I can keep my pace ahead of him, and I might get him in the next (round), Nicholas said.
It took Erskine’s Anthony Sanborn overtime to beat Cony’s Mitchell MacFarland in the 285-pound match. For three rounds, the two pushed each other around the mat, with each gaining one point. With 6.7 seconds left in the one minute OT, Sanborn earned two points with a take down for the title.
“That’s how it is,” Sanborn said. “Just trying to see who lasts longest, air-wise. That’s usually how a heavyweight match is.”
One of the most anticipated matches of the day came in the 220-pound final between Nokomis’ James Boyd and Jeffrey Worster of Oxford Hills. Saturday’s championship was the fourth match of the season between the two. They split a pair of regular season matches, and Worster earned the win at last weekend’s Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference championship. Worster won again on Saturday, but it was close.
Worster led the match 9-2 in the third round, before Boyd earned four quick points to cut the led to 9-6. With Boyd on top of Worster and going for more points or a pin, Worster was granted timeout with 1:06 left in the round. Worster popped up and ran to a nearby trash can and appeared to vomit. When the match resumed, any momentum Boyd had was lost. Worster scored three points to take an 11-6 win.
Mt. Ararat/Brunswick
Brycen Kowalsky (113 pounds), Spencer LeClair (132), Ben Laurence (152) and Brady Mitchell-Damms (195) captured regional titles on Saturday.
Kowalsky pinned Calvin Peck of Nokomis at 3:46 for the win, while LeClair worked hard to earn a major decision over Dawson Allen of Camden Hills, 19-6.
Laurence battled Oxford Hills’ Dillon Worcester and came out with a hard-fought 3-1 decision, while Mitchell-Damms defeated Travis May of Oxford Hills by decision, 10-7.
Eagles Caden Kowalsky, Holman and Hultsman each finished as runners-up, while Kyle Graffam was fourth at 145 pounds.
Morse’s Ihsan Myers continued his superb season with a 3-0 victory over Cony’s Aaron Lettre in the 182 final as the Shipbuilders finished seventh.
Shipbuilder Mason Savary claimed second at 145, while teammate Connor McNish was third at 126 after a consolation round pinfall victory over Kristina Kelly of Camden. Donovan Rector and Ben Brewer picked up points for Morse by placing fourth.
The State Class A Championship is this upcoming Saturday at Cony High School in Augusta.
Class B South
The regional was held at Fryeburg Academy on Saturday.
Wells captured the title with 216 points, with Medomak Valley (143) in second followed by Lisbon/Oak Hill (122) in third.
Wells boasted of five individual winners on the way to the championship.
Lisbon/Oak Hill had one champion as Jack Tibbetts won the 126-pound title bout with Travis Foster of Wells. Tibbetts pinned Foster at the 1:54 mark.
Runners-up for Lisbon/Oak Hill were Zoe Buteau (132), Daniel Bolton (170) and Cam Bourget (182), while Josiah Kenney (145), Christian St. Hilaire (160) and Isaac Potvin (195) each finished third.
Richmond’s Spencer Soule took fourth at 160.
The State Class B Championship is Saturday at Mattanawcook Academy in Lincoln.
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