TOPSHAM — Conference wrestling championships usually mean little more than confirmation of the pecking order established during the regular season.

And indeed, with Camden Hills defending its Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference championship at Mt. Ararat and Mt. Blue taking the Class A title, Saturday’s meet offered few surprises.

Camden Hills placed eight wrestlers in the championship finals, and even though only one, Jacob Powers (160), ended up winning, it was still plenty to out-distance Belfast’s four individual winners, 249.5 to 217.5.

Mt. Blue, led by 112-pound champion Khalil Newbill, finished third overall (153), with Morse (124) and Skowhegan (118.5) rounding out the top five. Oak Hill (71), led by champions Mike Hamm (189) and Nick Wells (215) finished 10th.

Newbill, the top seed, turned in one of the day’s most impressive performances, pinning all three of his opponents, including Walker Roberts of Belfast at 2:37 of the final.

“I faced him at the Belfast tournament. I pinned him in the first round,” said Newbill, a sophomore. “He’s gotten a lot better.”

Newbill was glad to get a taste of next week’s potential competition at regionals at Cony. He was particularly pleased with his pin of Skowhegan’s John Swett in the first period of their semifinal, since he expects to see him again next week.

“I wanted to test out how regionals would go,” he said. “I faced one of my main competition today and did pretty good.”

“He did exactly what I expected him to do,” said Mt. Blue assistant coach Seth Trahan. “We’ve been working on him getting a little more movement off bottom, but his top’s been developing to the point where he’s finishing more than he was last year.”

The Cougars benefited from some of the day’s biggest surprises — a second place finish from Chris Ingram (152), a win in the consolation finals by Caleb Farrington (160) and a fourth-place finish by Danny Reed (103). Third-place finishes by Kevin Moore (125) and Joey Metcalf (215) and a fourth place from Nicholas Hyde (119) also helped the cause.

“We were expecting maybe a top five finish,” said Trahan, filling in for head coach Bob O’Connor, who had a family commitment. “We just wanted to keep our focus and keep our intensity, not let a good first round go to our heads. I don’t see us deviating from our game plan (next week).”

Oak Hill had to develop a new game plan after two of its top wrestlers — Keith Madore, seeded second at 140, and Craig Morrill, seeded third at 152 — missed the bus to the meet. Yet Hamm and Wells still made it a winning day for the Raiders.

“We doubled the number of champs we’ve ever had at Oak Hill,” coach Shane Bouchard said. “It could have been a lot better. We left a lot of points on the table. I think we might have shown as one of the top three or four B teams today with all the kids. But that’s water under the bridge. We’ve got to build from it and learn.”

Hamm, who will defend his Western B title next week, avenged a regular-season loss to Morse’s Sean Marrero with a narrow 5-4 victory in the finals.

“This was a big confidence booster,” Hamm said. “I faced him a few weeks ago and he ended up beating me, 3-1.”

“He did what he had to do,” Bouchard said. “He wrestled intense in practice all week. He knew Marrero has beaten him before. He knew he had a possible match with (Camden Hills’ Brandon) Graffam on the way there, and Graffam had wrestled him really tough before. There are a lot of really good kids in that weight class.”

Wells pinned three of his four adversaries, including Rhett Chase of Camden Hills at 3:06 of the final. But the top seed wasn’t at the top of his game Saturday.

“I thought he was struggling earlier in the day,” Bouchard said. “He just didn’t look good. He didn’t look crisp. But he’s started to show up in finals matches this year. He knows how to wrestle in a tournament and get it done in a final.”

“I don’t know why, I just didn’t have the mindset to wrestle,” Wells said. “It clicked about the third match in and I started wrestling hard. (Having finals experience) helps, but you never know. Chase is a tough kid. From last year, he’s improved a vast amount.”