FARMINGTON – If this becomes a habit for the Mt. Blue wrestling team, it will be good for the high school’s trophy case but bad for coach Shane McNear’s health.
For the second straight year, Mt. Blue came from behind in the final round and snatched away the Eastern Class A wrestling championship on their home mats.
“I’m going to have an ulcer by the time I’m in my late 20s,” joked McNear, who took over the Cougars in January after then coach Nate Platt resigned for personal reasons.
Mt. Blue bounced back from a near disastrous semifinal round and, like last year, used the help of rival Skowhegan and others to vault past Mt. Ararat, 162-157, despite having less than half as many wrestlers qualify for the finals as the Eagles.
“The semis were kind of rough and we were a little disappointed with how we had wrestled,” McNear said. “We regrouped. We talked about it and the captains talked to the wrestlers after I was done. They just stepped up in a way I haven’t seen them do all year.”
Mt. Blue trailed by 44.5 points following the semis and 2.5 points going into the final, where wins by Sam Webber (112), Shane Webber (135) and Hazen Pingree (160) put them over the top.
Consolation round victories from Kateleen Roberts (103), Kris Arnold (119), Gary Begin (125), Jared Merrill (152) and Will Plancon (171) put the Cougars in position to challenge in the final round.
Five Mt. Ararat wrestlers went down in the finals, three of them to grapplers from Skowhegan, which finished third with 128 points. Oxford Hills’ Tom Moulton also helped out the Cougars by knocking off the Eagles’ Jeremy Jauniaux at 152. He and Cory Smith (189) picked up championships to help the Vikings finish fourth with 100 points.
Smith defeated Skowhegan’s Devin Provencal, 6-2, by keeping him at a safe distance.
“Instead of getting tied up I had to keep him at arm’s length so he wouldn’t be able to get that rush in on me,” Smith said. “We had a match at Skowhegan where he beat me by one point, so I knew I had to step it up.”
Along with Smith and Moulton, the Vikings will send four other wrestlers to states – Jack Pike, Brad Smith, Tyler Guerin and Keith Brown. Mt. Blue will send 10 wrestlers to the state championships next week in Augusta.
The Cougars moved ahead early in the finals after Sam Webber pinned Morse’s Logan Russell at 3:43. Ben Cox put the Eagles back in front with a technical fall over Casey Littrell of Morse at 125. Shane Webber swung the momentum back in Mt. Blue’s favor by pinning Gardiner’s Keith Sleeper at 1:50
“I wanted to be aggressive and get the first takedown,” said the undefeated Webber, who beat Sleeper for fourth time this year. “I tried to have more intensity and finish my moves. I didn’t want to let my fans down in my last match at home.”
Two more Eagles went down in the finals with Pingree on deck. The junior then pinned Mike Curry at 4:17 to keep the Cougars’ hopes of defending their title alive.
All that was left was for Cony’s Cody Myers to beat the Eagles’ Mike Taylor at 171. Myers did his part, just barely, by coming from behind to top Taylor, 11-9, in the only overtime match of the final round.
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