LONDONDERRY – Concord brought 14 wrestlers to Saturday’s Division I championships. When 11 of them made it to the semifinals, it looked like the Crimson Tide had a chance to beat Timberlane, winners of 16 of the last 17 D-I titles coming into the tournament.
After Concord won only three of those semifinal matches, the dream of dethroning the Owls faded.
Timberlane (which had 13 in the semis, seven in the finals and six champions) claimed its second straight crown – and 16th in the last 17 years – with 271.5 points. The Tide finished runner-up for the second straight year with 194.5 points. That was well behind the Owls, but also well ahead of the three-way race for third place between Londonderry (107), Pinkerton (103.5) and Exeter (100).
“Your best wrestling has to be in the semifinals. You’ve got to punch those guys in, and we didn’t do that today, but there’s always next week,” said Concord senior Chris Munnell, the 160-pound champion and one of 13 Tide wrestlers to finish in the top six and qualify for Saturday’s Meet of Champions. “We had so many advance to next week, so we just have to go in and practice hard. We usually do well at MOC.”
That positivity was echoed by another Concord captain, senior and two-time D-I champion, George Tarwo, who defended his title at 182.
“We brought 14 and 14 came here and gave it their all. We battled and we should be proud of each other,” Tarwo said. “We don’t have the D-I state title, but no matter what we’ve got each other’s back.”
Tarwo will be the favorite to win a third straight 182-pound MOC title Saturday. After that, he should also be one of the contenders at the New England tournament.
“George crushed at this tournament the past few years, crushes at the MOC, now we’ve just got to get him on the podium at New Englands,” Concord Coach Ham Munnell said. “He’s probably one of the top-four, top-three kids in New England.”
Tarwo has lost just one match all season, but he’s undefeated against in-state competition. On Saturday he won his first match by first-period pin and claimed a 13-3 major decision in the semifinals against Exeter senior Tim Ramsey.
Tarwo controlled the final against Pinkerton freshman Sterling McLaughlin, building a 7-0 lead and nearly ending things with a second-period pin. But McLaughlin hung tough for the full six minutes and Tarwo eventually won, 9-2.
“He gave me a go. He was exhausted by the end, but I was, too,” said Tarwo, who is 23-0 in New Hampshire this season. “We were pushing each other. It was great. He gave me a challenge and I didn’t back down.”
Chris Munnell, who won the 152 title at last year’s D-I meet, faced a familiar challenge in his final against Londonderry’s Colin Reardon. The two had just wrestled on Feb. 1, a match that Munnell won, 1-0. And he used the exact same score Saturday to claim a championship.
After a scoreless first period, Munnell rode Reardon for the entire second period, making it look easy in the second minute. The Concord senior escaped 10 seconds into the third for the match’s only point, and he was actually the more aggressive of the two wrestlers for the remaining time.
“Chris did what he needed to do,” said his father and coach, Ham. “It was a smart match.”
Not only did Munnell learn from his recent experience with Reardon, he also learned from last year’s D-I championship run.
“I knew what to expect, and I knew what I was supposed to do,” Munnell said. “I knew what mind set I had to have.”
Concord’s third finalist was senior Jake Linquata at 113. He beat Salem’s Ryan Burke in quarterfinals, 14-5, and pinned Bedford’s Jack Carrozzi in the third period of the semifinals.
In the finals waited top-seeded Taylor Donovan from Timberlane, who Linquata had just taken to overtime during a match Feb. 8. The rematch was close through two-plus periods until Donovan turned a 4-0 third-period lead into a 12-1 final decision.
Concord’s two closest semifinal losses came at 220, where junior Alex Buteau dropped a 3-2 overtime decision, and at 195, where sophomore Noah Giffard lost an 8-6 heartbreaker. But after those losses, both Buteau and Giffard bounced back to win their next two matches by pin and finish with emphatic third-place results.
Freshman Cam Cate (120), who just started wrestling at the beginning of this season, also finished third for the Tide. Cate lost to Timberlane’s Dylan Musgrave, the eventual champion, in the semifinals, but he won his first consolation match by pin and then worked a 15-4 major decision to take third.
“Cam Cate was awesome,” Coach Munnell said. “He’s turned himself into a wrestler, and that’s great to see.”
Concord sophomore Forest Mackenzie (138) was trailing 6-1 going into the third period in his third-place match against Londonderry’s Craig Santos. But Mackenzie, who is also one of the best cross country runners in the state, showed his endurance by mounting a furious third-period comeback before falling just short, 8-7, and settling for fourth.
Sam Wagner (106), Ben Widmann (132) and Will Woods (285) also piled up fourth-place finishes for the Tide. Concord’s Nick Bunch (126) and Isaac Habimana (170) won their last consolation matches to take fifth place and Isaac Gladey (170) finished sixth.
(Tim O’Sullivan can be reached at 369-3341 or at tosullivan@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @timosullivan20.)
