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SOUTH BERWICK, Maine — First of all, there’s never a ”good” night to tangle with the Marshwood High School wrestling team. But it certainly didn’t help that the Hawks’ home opener on Wednesday featured an emotional double whammy — the unveiling of the program’s new 100-win board and then surprising veteran coach Matt Rix by honoring him for his 500th career win.
That’s what visiting Kennebunk was up against. The outcome went pretty much as expected with Marshwood, the two time defending Class A champs, winning the dual meet, 71-6.
Coach Rix, now in his 31st year, picked up his milestone win this past weekend during a tournament at Timberlane Regional High School in Plaistow, N.H. The Hawks came in second to last year’s New England runners-up.
In addition, juniors Cody Hughes and Jackson Howarth each picked up their 100th career win.
“It’s a good accomplishment, but you’ve got to keep moving forward now,” Hughes said. “Keep practicing every day hard. ... But it was definitely a good win (Wednesday), good atmosphere. A pretty good showing of spectators. We definitely wanted to get the crowd going to make it a fun dual for us.”
Hughes and Howarth were honored, along with coach Rix, before Wednesday’s match. A brief, but emotional, slideshow was shown recognizing all 33 100-win Marshwood wrestlers from Todd Hughes in 1990 to his son, Cody, this past weekend. There were also pictures of coach Rix’s 100-win kids, Matty and Deanna. Matty died from a drug overdose in 2009 and Deanna remains a women’s Olympic wrestling hopeful.
“It was a good night, good crowd,” said coach Rix. “We don’t have a lot of home meets, so it was good. ... We saw some nice things from our freshman, the heavyweight (Loukas Coussoule) looked good. He works hard in practice and has those (older) guys on him all the time. He has no choice but to get better.”
Rix also mentioned sophomore Chikacha Nduaguibe, a first-year wrestler, who has potential. He said the Hawks need to get points out of the 138- and 145-pound weight classes — possible difference-makers when you get to the big tournaments.
“We know what to expect out of Brett (Gerry), Jackson and Cody,” Rix added. “Darren (LaPointe) is going to be right in the mix of things. The same with Killian Murphy. It’s a good start for the kids and a good show for the crowd.”
Marshwood set the tone by winning the first four contested matches to go up 23-0.
Shamus McManus won by pin at 1:04 at 152 pounds. Hughes was victorious by tech fall at 160, 17-2; Howarth won with a pin in 2:48 at 170, and Justin Stacy pinned Kennebunk’s Patrick Saunders at 182 in 5:23.
Gerry won by forfeit at 195 to push the lead to 29-0.
Gerry, Hughes and Howarth are the Hawks’ three returning individual state champs.
“We went out there confident and stuck it to them,” said Howarth. “It was the first home meet. We put on a good show with the 500 wins and the board, so we definitely knew we had to do our job and put a good show on and win today.”
Marshwood’s only loss came at 220 where Kennebunk’s Connor Donaher wrestled up to avoid Gerry and pinned Nduaguibe in 1:55.
Picking up contested wins for the Hawks after that were Coussoule at heavyweight (pin, 1:00), freshman Bradley Beaulieu at 120 (pin, 30 seconds), Josh Marks at 126 (10-3), Murphy at 132 (pin, 56 seconds), Eric Glidden at 138 (pin, 1:57) and Sam Hebert at 145 (9-2).
Also winning by forfeit for the Hawks were Matt Caverly at 106 and Darren LaPointe at 113.
“We knew coming in today was going to be tough,” said first-year Kennebunk coach Steve Young. “We’re young. We have two seniors and neither was wrestling for us today (for various reasons). So it is what it is. We learned. ... (Marshwood) has good people. They’ve done good work. You can’t say anything against the success they’ve had. They’ve done a great job with their programs. That’s where we’d like to take ours.”
Marshwood wrestles at the Massabesic tournament Saturday.
That’s what visiting Kennebunk was up against. The outcome went pretty much as expected with Marshwood, the two time defending Class A champs, winning the dual meet, 71-6.
Coach Rix, now in his 31st year, picked up his milestone win this past weekend during a tournament at Timberlane Regional High School in Plaistow, N.H. The Hawks came in second to last year’s New England runners-up.
In addition, juniors Cody Hughes and Jackson Howarth each picked up their 100th career win.
“It’s a good accomplishment, but you’ve got to keep moving forward now,” Hughes said. “Keep practicing every day hard. ... But it was definitely a good win (Wednesday), good atmosphere. A pretty good showing of spectators. We definitely wanted to get the crowd going to make it a fun dual for us.”
Hughes and Howarth were honored, along with coach Rix, before Wednesday’s match. A brief, but emotional, slideshow was shown recognizing all 33 100-win Marshwood wrestlers from Todd Hughes in 1990 to his son, Cody, this past weekend. There were also pictures of coach Rix’s 100-win kids, Matty and Deanna. Matty died from a drug overdose in 2009 and Deanna remains a women’s Olympic wrestling hopeful.
“It was a good night, good crowd,” said coach Rix. “We don’t have a lot of home meets, so it was good. ... We saw some nice things from our freshman, the heavyweight (Loukas Coussoule) looked good. He works hard in practice and has those (older) guys on him all the time. He has no choice but to get better.”
Rix also mentioned sophomore Chikacha Nduaguibe, a first-year wrestler, who has potential. He said the Hawks need to get points out of the 138- and 145-pound weight classes — possible difference-makers when you get to the big tournaments.
“We know what to expect out of Brett (Gerry), Jackson and Cody,” Rix added. “Darren (LaPointe) is going to be right in the mix of things. The same with Killian Murphy. It’s a good start for the kids and a good show for the crowd.”
Marshwood set the tone by winning the first four contested matches to go up 23-0.
Shamus McManus won by pin at 1:04 at 152 pounds. Hughes was victorious by tech fall at 160, 17-2; Howarth won with a pin in 2:48 at 170, and Justin Stacy pinned Kennebunk’s Patrick Saunders at 182 in 5:23.
Gerry won by forfeit at 195 to push the lead to 29-0.
Gerry, Hughes and Howarth are the Hawks’ three returning individual state champs.
“We went out there confident and stuck it to them,” said Howarth. “It was the first home meet. We put on a good show with the 500 wins and the board, so we definitely knew we had to do our job and put a good show on and win today.”
Marshwood’s only loss came at 220 where Kennebunk’s Connor Donaher wrestled up to avoid Gerry and pinned Nduaguibe in 1:55.
Picking up contested wins for the Hawks after that were Coussoule at heavyweight (pin, 1:00), freshman Bradley Beaulieu at 120 (pin, 30 seconds), Josh Marks at 126 (10-3), Murphy at 132 (pin, 56 seconds), Eric Glidden at 138 (pin, 1:57) and Sam Hebert at 145 (9-2).
Also winning by forfeit for the Hawks were Matt Caverly at 106 and Darren LaPointe at 113.
“We knew coming in today was going to be tough,” said first-year Kennebunk coach Steve Young. “We’re young. We have two seniors and neither was wrestling for us today (for various reasons). So it is what it is. We learned. ... (Marshwood) has good people. They’ve done good work. You can’t say anything against the success they’ve had. They’ve done a great job with their programs. That’s where we’d like to take ours.”
Marshwood wrestles at the Massabesic tournament Saturday.