Oak Hill senior Danny Buteau used an escape to gain a 1-0 decision over Skowhegan’s Samson Sirois in the finals of the 132-pound weight class at the Mountain Valley tournament last weekend. The match featured two of the top wrestlers in the state; Buteau has three state titles to his credit while Sirois has twice finished second at the state meet. Buteau not only won his weight class but was named the tournament’s most outstanding wrestler.

“The first period was no score but we both almost took each other down a couple times,” Buteau said. “In the second period, I rode him out.”

That set the stage for the third period, in which Buteau escaped to score the deciding point. Buteau ran his season record to 8-0.

The tournament was originally slated to include 20 teams, but that number dwindled to eight due to the projected inclement weather. Skowhegan and Madison were also in attendance and each team had wrestlers bring home individual titles. Cody Craig (113) and Ricky Oberg (120) won their weight classes for the Indians, who finished fourth as a team. Madison was led by individual champions Seth Padelford (220) and Matt Brown (285).

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Winslow is off to a strong start this season. The Black Raiders finished fifth out of 15 teams in the preseason Westlake Tournament. They are 4-1 in dual meets. The Winslow lineup consists of a blend of experienced wrestlers and relative newcomers to the sport.

Seniors Patrick Hopkins and Ben Abbott and juniors Devon Vigue and Ryan Fredette provide veteran leadership.

“If we are to maintain the positive trajectory that I believe we have started with, it will be in no small part due to the excellent leadership that we have from our upperclassmen,” said first-year head coach Tony Dalisio. “They have set a solid tone both vocally and by example.”

Hopkins likes what Dalisio brings to the team.

“He brings a lot of energy and experience to our wrestling room every day,” Hopkins said. “He picked up pretty quickly on our individual strengths and weaknesses, and helps us improve on what we need to work on.”

Hopkins is one of four undefeated individuals for the Black Raiders, joining Abbott, Fredette and Vigue. All are 5-0. Hopkins, Abbott and Fredette have also reached the 100 career victory mark this season.

Winslow will compete at the Cony Duals on Friday in Augusta.

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Eleven schools will compete in the aforementioned Cony Duals, including the following: Cony, Morse, Gardiner, Skowhegan, Erskine, Mt. Ararat, Winslow, Madison, Westbrook, Oxford Hills, and Mt. Blue. There will also be a 12th “composite” team formed from independents and JV wrestlers from each of the attending schools. In this dual meet tournament, the teams are divided into three pools of four teams each. Each team wrestles the other teams in the pool. The teams are then ranked based on the results of the pool competition and wrestle in a final round-robin against the equivalently ranked teams in the other pools.

Cony coach Shawn Totman likes the dual meet format because every wrestler has the opportunity to compete multiple times during the day.

“A wrestler can be eliminated from competition in just a couple of matches in a tournament where each weight class is individually bracketed,” he said. “In this tournament, a wrestler can get as many as five matches. I think this is especially good for the younger, developing athlete.”

This is the 16th year of the annual even, which is scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m. on four mats.

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The annual Gardiner Tiger Invitational, which was postponed last Saturday, has been rescheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 27. The field has been reduced from 13 teams to eight due to scheduling conflicts for many of the southern Maine teams that were originally invited. Wrestling is expected to begin at 9:30 a.m.

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