SOUTH PARIS — Zeko Caudill won his second Eastern Class A wrestling championship on Saturday, but the Cony High School senior believes there is still much room for improvement.
With the state championships looming next week, Caudill has good reason to want to get better, even after defending his 138-pound title at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School.
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“I didn’t wrestle as well as I thought I would,” Caudill said. “I’ve been cutting a lot of weight, so especially towards the beginning of the tournament, I was kind of out of it. I just had to get my energy back. By my final, I was feeling good, and I went out there confident.”
Caudill won the final by pinning Skowhegan’s Julian Siriois in 1 minute, 12 seconds.
“Honestly, I knew he was going to come at me because I beat him the week before, and that was his personality,” Caudill said. “I knew I would have to match his intensity, stay on him and not give him a chance. He kept shooting in on me, with his arms spread wide, so I took advantage of it and I just flipped him right over onto his back.”
Caudill and 220-pound champion Max Storey helped Cony to a third-place finish in the team standings, 61 points behind champion Skowhegan and 4.5 points behind runner-up Oxford Hills.
Skowhegan took home five individual championships en route to 184.5 points. Westbrook (110) and Nokomis (108.5) rounded out the top five.
Storey defeated Creighton Medeiros of Oxford Hills, 9-3, in the 220 final.
Two other Rams also reached the finals. Devon O’Connor fell to Christopher Wilson of Nokomis, 4-0, in the 195 final, and Elias Younes advanced to the 285 final, where he was pinned by Jacob Nichols of Nokomis at 1:24.
“We’ve gone at it a lot this year,” Nichols said. “Most of my finals matches have been against him. I think we know how to wrestle each other. I just tripped him, basically, and got him on his back. I usually try to duck under or something, but this time, I just saw his foot there and I stepped on it.”
Nichols, a senior, said he dropped his weight from 287 to 265 since the start of the season in hopes of building his stamina.
“I’m just trying to work. I really want it this year,” he said. “There’s no doubt I’ll be meeting (Younes) next week in the finals.”
Four other Cony wrestlers advanced to Saturday’s Class A state championships at Mt. Ararat High School: Dylan Trevino (fourth place, 106), Palak Patel (fourth, 113), Tre Caudill (third, 126), and Victor Tapia-Smith (third, 170).
Skowhegan qualified 11 out of 12 wrestlers for the state meet, dominating the light and middle weights.
“Most of our team got No. 1 seeds,” said 152-pound champion Kameron Doucette, one of six top seeds for the Indians. “A lot of the kids that we weren’t sure whether they were going to make it to states or not ended up making it to states. That was a big thing. I think we did really well today. We blew the team points out of the water.”
Cody Craig defended his 106 crown with a 16-0 technical fall over Nokomis’ Jacob Booth. Samson Sirois pinned Mt. Blue’s Matthew Hyde 51 seconds into their final to take the 113 crown.
Tyler Craig picked up the fourth regional title of his career by pinning Jesse Maller of Windham at 3:29 of the 126 final.
Cooper Holland won his first regional title at 132 with a 6-3 decision over Westbrook’s Max Storm. And Doucette won the 152 title by defeating Westbrook’s Brandon Conley, 10-3, in the final.
Six other Skowhegan wrestlers will advance to states, including three runners-up from Saturday — Jon Bell (120), Julian Sirois (138), Logan Stevens (160) — along with Oakley Fortier (fourth place, 220) and Caleb Vautier (fourth, 285).
Six other Nokomis wrestlers qualified for states: Jacob Booth (second, 106), Josh Brown (third, 113), Kolin Fraser (third, 132), Caleb McFarlin (fourth, 170), Jacob Richards (third, 182) and Christopher Wilson (195),
Other local wrestlers who advanced to next week: Mt. Blue’s Matthew Hyde (second, 113) and Terry Storer (fourth, 138), and Messalonskee’s Austin Pelletier (third, 160).
Mt. Blue finished eighth in the team standings, Messalonskee 12th.
Randy Whitehouse — 621-5638
rwhitehouse@mainetoday.com
Twitter: @RAWmaterial33
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