SKOWHEGAN — Skowhegan’s wrestlers and coaches appeared relaxed heading into the championship round of Saturday’s Class A North championships at Skowhegan Area High School, and with good reason.

The Indians had already qualified a dozen wrestlers for the Class A state championships next Saturday at Noble High School and taken a big step toward their goal to break southern Maine’s stranglehold on Class A.

But they weren’t satisfied.

Eight of those 12 wrestlers are regional champions who led Skowhegan to its fourth consecutive regional crown in a dominating performance.

“They wrestled real tough, did what they were supposed to do. They came out and finished, got their bonus points where they needed to,” Skowhegan co-coach Tenney Noyes said. “They set themselves up for next weekend. Now, we’ve got to get ready for states.

Skowhegan (243.5) left the drama for the runner-up spot, which Cony earned with 122 points, followed by Nokomis (114.5), Camden Hills (114) and Westbrook (93).

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Cony qualified eight wrestlers for the state meet, including 220 champion Max Storey. Nokomis will send six to Noble, led by 195 champion Christopher Wilson and 285 champion Hunter Glidden.

There were few surprises in the championship finals, as all but one top seed won their weight class. Luke Bolster, a No. 5 seed from Skowhegan, defeated Christian Jensen of Mt. Ararat/Brunswick, 3-0, for the 138 gold medal.

“He’s been wrestling up at 145. He’s got a couple of tournament championships,” Noyes said. “The kid’s a great wrestler and he put it together and got it done.”

Bolster and 132 champion Cooper Holland celebrated their 100th career victories last week at the KVAC championships. On Saturday, junior Cody Craig earned his 150th career win when he defeated Noah Dumas of Cony in the 106 final. Next week, he’ll be looking for his third state championship.

“It’s pretty great to get number 150 in the finals at home, and it’s pretty cool to get it a lot earlier than most people do,” Craig said. “Hopefully, going to states is going to be business as usual, but that doesn’t always happen.”

Skowhegan has taken a business-like approach throughout the season to prepare for a showdown with southern Maine powers Noble and Marshwood in their back yard next week.

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“They’ve been focused all year,” Noyes said. “They know it’s one weekend at a time. They know they had to accomplish this weekend, get it done and then move on to the next one. We’re going to come back Monday and start from scratch.”

Skowhegan’s Richard Oberg started from scratch to bounce back from a fourth-place finish at KVACs and pin Jabbar Belin of Mt. Ararat/Brunswick at 1:31 of the 120 final.

“I’d say I trained a lot harder,” he said. “We’re real focused on states. I need to do my part. Everyone else does, too.”

Also earning gold medals for the Indians were Samson Sirois (126), Julian Siriois (152), Kameron Doucette (160) and Logan Stevens (182). Jon Bell reached the 145 final, while Austin Merrill (113), Daniel Laweryson (195) and Caleb Vautier (285) also qualified by reaching the consolation finals.

Storey defended his 220 title and improved to 36-0 on the season with a pin Mt. Blue’s Austin Seeley in the semifinal and a 15-5 win over Logan Truman of Oxford Hills in the finals.

“I had an alright day today, not the kind of day I wanted,” Storey said. “I felt kind of out of it for the finals. I need to be more focused. I just need to step it up and keep going, keep grinding on the mat.”

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Cony ground out seven more spots at states, led by Dumas and consolation finalists Palak Patel (120), Jakob Arbour (132), Nic Mills (160), Nicholas Sidelinger (182), Devon O’Connor (195) and Mitchell MacFarland (285).

“It’s a distant second (to Skowhegan), but it’s still second. Skowhegan’s really tough,” Cony coach Shawn Totman said. “Our freshmen stepped up big. Everybody that came wrestled really, really well. It was a good day for us. And you could kind of see it (was coming) the way that they were practicing this week. It was a really good week of practice and I don’t think that snow day (Friday) hurt us at all. We went at it pretty hard Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.”

Wilson retained his 195 title by pinning Kyle Dexter of Oxford Hills at 3:12. His teammate, Glidden, topped that with a pin of Westbrook’s Christopher Kennie at 1:49 of the heavyweight final.

Warriors joining them at states are Joshua Brown (106), Quinton Richards (138), Kolin Fraser (145) and David Wilson (152), Messalonskee’s Austin Pelletier, who wrestles with the Skowhegan team, advanced to states at 152, while Seeley will represent Mt. Blue.

Randy Whitehouse — 621-5638

rwhitehouse@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @RAWmaterial33


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