jpinsonnault@seacoastonline.com
The York High School wrestling team had never placed as high as third before in the Western Maine Class B league meet.
Until this year.
York's Josh Smith, top, placed second in the 145-pound weight
class at Saturday's Mid-State League wrestling tournament at Wells High School.
Carl PepinZach Handley, at 220 pounds, and Connor Elsemore, at 160, both went 3-0 on the day and won their respective weight classes and the Wildcats placed second with 127 points at the Mid-State league championship meet at Wells High School on Saturday.
Mountain Valley won the 10-team tournament with 138½ points, while Dirigo (118), Wells (117½), Fryeburg Academy (113), Lisbon (85½), Oak Hill (55), Boothbay (33), Monmouth Academy (29) and Madison (no score) placed third through 10th, respectively.
"It's definitely our highest finish ever," York coach Wally Caldwell said. "The fact that we finished ahead of Wells and Dirigo and Fryeburg is a big plus for us because those are the teams we'll be challenged by at the regional meet. We had some good matches and some good results. We're going to have to contend with Mountain Valley at the regionals, but we had a good day."
Elsemore beat Dirigo's Jesse Hutchinson, 9-7 in the championship match at 160.
"That match was just a war," Caldwell said. "It was unbelievable; that kid (Hutchinson) is the real deal and Connor wrestled extremely well. It was textbook wrestling. He (Elsemore) got the lead, played defense for the third period and he won."
Handley pinned Wells' Chuck Taylor at the 5:09 mark of the third period in the 220 championship. Handley has been competing at both the 220 and 195 weight classes, depending on which class has the strongest wrestler and letting Handley compete against the better opponent.
"Zach is a force and he's in a good place right now," Caldwell said. "Midway through the season we thought he could do some damage at 220 and felt it was a good thing to bump him up. He was at 195, but has been wrestling fine at 220. He had a great day on Saturday; to win this league tournament for the first time is great."
John Mackaman went 2-1 and placed second at 106, and Josh Smith went 2-1 and placed second at 145, losing to tournament MVP Stewart Buzzell of Monmouth, 7-0 in the championship match.
"(Josh) had a phenomenal day," Caldwell said. "This kid (Buzzell) is the real deal and Josh did a good job; you have to build off these situations and he'll face off against him (Buzzell) at some point this weekend."
Smith beat Mountain Valley's Dakota Jacques, the second seed, 9-1.
"(Smith) had never wrestled him before and this kid (Jacques) was seeded way above Josh and he had a great day against him."
York's Cody Spicer went 2-1 and lost in the championship match at heavyweight, 12-8.
"He (Spicer) had him on his back but couldn't finish him off," Caldwell said.
York's Andrew Boisvert placed third at 152 and Mark Slusher was third at 182.
The Wildcats will compete at Saturday's regional meet at Winslow High School at 9 a.m. The top four wrestlers in each weight class will advance to the Class B state meet, which is scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 15 at Morse High School.
"Clearly, we'd like to get in the top three as a team," Caldwell said. "If we wrestle like we did this weekend, we could be in top three; top two would be great."
Caldwell thinks Mackaman (106), Smith (145), Boisvert (152), Elsemore (160), Jack Bouchard (170), Slusher (182), Handley (220) and Spicer (heavyweight) all could place in the top four at the regional meet and qualify for the state tournament.