Mountain Valley's Chance Watson, left, and Lincoln Academy's Cole Workman compete in the 132-pound class. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

LEWISTON — After the graduation of several seniors from last year’s Class B championship team, Wells entered the 2024-25 wrestling season with an uncertain outlook. And, noticing his team was a bit sluggish in the middle of the year, Warriors coach Scott Lewia gave his team a pep talk.

“I said, ‘You know, no one is going to roll over for us, you’ve got to go after it, be aggressive,'” Lewia said. “Our saying after that was, ‘Wrestle with attitude. Wrestle like we’re defending state champions.'”

From that moment on, Wells never lost another meet or tournament. The Warriors capped their surge Saturday by winning the program’s third consecutive state title at The Colisée. Wells was led by seniors Dominic Buxton (165 pounds) and Eli Potter (215), who won individual titles. The Warriors now have nine Class B championships – seven since 2017.

“We’ve been doing this ever since we were little,” Buxton said. “It feels great to keep winning in high school.”

“It feels pretty good (to win), it never gets old,” Lewia said. “We wrestled well today. We had a couple kids who could’ve wrestled better, kind of disappointed themselves, but we did enough to pull through. I was a little nervous (in this meet).”

Wells finished with 110 points, holding off Dirigo (86.5) and Mattanawcook Academy (84). The wins by Buxton and Potter — both by technical fall — sealed the title for Wells. Buxton beat Muiin Cook of Maine Central Institute, 17-1, and Potter defeated Tate Taylor of Monmouth Academy, 15-0.

Wells also got big contributions from Alex Albright (157) and William Martinez (190), who both finished second.

“We were feeling pretty confident, but at no point during the day, until we locked it up, did I feel 100 percent sure we were going to win,” Potter said. “This year, we really had to work for it … Dirigo and Mattanawcook have a lot of really great wrestlers, but we were happy to pull it out in the end.”

Dirigo had two state champions: Caiden Skidgell (138) and Hudson Lufkin (157). Skidgell defeated Antonio Vieira of Mount View, 11-5, and Lufkin beat Albright by technical fall, 19-4.

Mount View’s Josiah Miller was named Wrestler of the Meet after a 5-4 victory over Lincoln Academy’s Adam St. Cyr in the 144-pound final. Miller trailed St. Cyr 3-0 after two periods. But in the third period, Miller shot in on St. Cyr, grabbed a single leg and locked St. Cyr’s head to his leg for a pin attempt, and the lead.

“I put (St. Cyr) in neutral (position), and we had been drilling getting that swoop all week,” Miller said. “I got him in that swoop, put his head down, locked him up, and put him on his back.”

Following the victory, Miller jumped into the arms of Mount View coach Hamilton Richards and was lifted up by his teammates.

“I think I knew I was going to be a state champ this whole week,” Miller said. “I was looking at the Facebook predictions, and it was making me a little bit angry. After beating (St. Cyr) at (the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference championships), I didn’t think it was an upset. I just beat him. But nobody believed that, and I wanted to prove them wrong.”

Two matches went into overtime. Spencer Richard of Madison/Carrabec made a late comeback to tie Carter Noble, 11-11, in the 126-pound championship. Noble scored a takedown in the first minute of overtime to claim the title.

Chance Watson of Mountain Valley won the 132-pound championship after going three overtimes with Cole Workman of Lincoln Academy. The match was tied 2-2, and both wrestlers kept pushing one another out of bounds, unable to score a point. But Watson was finally able to escape an attack by Workman and angled around him to score a point.

“I wanted this championship ever since I was a kid, and it finally happened,” Watson said. “I just had a bunch of my coach’s voices keeping my head in (the match). I was tired and I’m sure (Workman) was tired, but I was just going to push and get through this. I needed that (win) badly.”

Belfast’s top two wrestlers, Dominic Simpson (113) and Ryker Evans (150), both won titles. Simpson, a sophomore, beat Cohen Swoveland of Waterville by technical fall, 17-1. Evans gained a third-period pin on Owen Harper of Mattanawcook. Simpson and Evans won titles in different weight classes last year.

Other champions included Clayton McPheters (106) of Mattanawcook, Phoenix Martinez (120) of Oceanside, Jakobi Hagar (175) of Lincoln Academy, Grady Pease (190) of Medomak Valley and Geza Labancz (285) of Fryeburg Academy. Martinez, who beat Julian Melendez of York by a 5-2 score, picked up his 100th career victory.

Saturday was the first time since 2011 that the Maine Principals’ Association hosted both the Class A and Class B championship meet in the same building.