Hollis Brookline wrestling beats Winnacunnet on tiebreaker (video)
HOLLIS - When Brian Bumpus watched the Winnacunnet High School wrestling team perform at last season's Division II championship meet, the Hollis Brookline coach thought the Warriors would be a program to reckon with this year.
Winnacunnet took another step toward proving that Wednesday night, as the Warriors came back from a 33-12 deficit, including pins in the final two matches, to tie the Cavaliers 36-36. HB got the win on the fifth tiebreaker, total wins (8-6), to win the match 37-36.
"We had them circled on the schedule coming into the season," Bumpus said. "We knew after the Division II meet last year that Winnacunnet was going to be a very, very solid team this year. They're young still, they don't have a lot of seniors. We were fully expecting this to be a battle coming into it. People would be off base if they weren't looking at Winnacunnet."
Wyatt Farwell (160 pounds) and Clement Sherwood (220) each had a pin for HB, which had some wrestlers in different spots due to injuries and illness. Winnacunnet's Matt Cooney (132) opened the match with a pin while Jaden Lesperance (120) and Mike Dow (126) had pins in the final two matches for the Warriors.
But the Cavs won all four matches that went the distance, all of them by three points or less. Nick McPherson (145) held off Tyler Mallett for a 3-0 win; Sam St. Pierre (152) got out to a good lead over Dustin McCann and won 13-10; Christian Lopez (160) survived for a 6-5 win over Ryan Boyle; and Cameron Dryer (106) won a back-and-forth match with Trevon Rowe 10-8.
"When we got here, I told the guys we had to be perfect if we were going to beat them," Winnacunnet coach Eric Larcomb said. "We were pretty close to that. We had a couple of matches that should have been a little more competitive, but we had some close matches that could have gone either. We did what we could, but we could have done a little better I think. Reflecting on it, we did compete against the defending champs, which is what we want to strive for."
Dryer and Rowe turned in the match of the night at 106 with a third period that had four lead changes and two ties. Dryer led 4-3 going in, but Rowe was able to get ahead 6-4 before two technical violations against the Winnacunnet wrestler tied it 6-6.
Rowe gave up an escape point after the second violation and took Dryer down with 17 seconds left to go up 8-7. But another technical violation, this time for two points, put Dryer ahead 9-8, and Rowe gave up another escape with 15 seconds left.
"(Rowe) is a first-year wrestler, so he doesn't know what he's doing yet," Larcomb said. "But he's fast and he's athletic and determined. It was a good match for him."
For Dryer, it was a continuation of what Bumpus has seen from him in the early part of the season.
"Cam came in this year with a way different attitude than last year," the coach said. "We saw it change two weekends ago. It was like all of a sudden something clicked in his head. He goes out there and just wrestles and doesn't try to overanalyze every technique he’s trying to do. He's going out there to win and wrestle like we want all our guys to wrestle. He's come into his own."
Both teams are back in action Saturday, as Winnacunnet will travel to the Londonderry Holiday Tournament, while HB will host the Nor'Easter Invitational.
