BY SAPNA PATHAK
It was exactly the way they pictured it, coming down to the final seconds of the last match. It was the right setting, with the crowd on its feet. It was the ending that was wrong.
It was supposed to be the Crimson Tide hugging and cheering as they swarmed the mats. Instead, the boys of Concord High had to watch as Timberlane’s grapplers celebrated another Division I wrestling title.
The Owls won by two points on Saturday, Feb. 17, for their eighth-straight D-I title, 239.5 to 237.5.
Twice the Crimson Tide had proved they could grapple with Timberlane and win. Victories went to Concord in the Lowell Holiday tournament in Massachusetts and, for the first time ever, in a regular-season dual meet.
The teams entered the second day of the tournament with Concord hanging on to a half-point lead. By the time the final matches were set, the Owls had pulled even at 216.5 points apiece.
“I think everyone’s pretty nervous out there,” said Concord senior Tyler Saltsman. “Beating them in a dual meet doesn’t make us favorites and doesn’t mean we’re not going to have to be at our absolute best for the rest of the night.”
Saltsman was at his best, as the future Naval Academy wrestler won the 130-pound title with a 12-4 major decision over Salem’s Alex Pittera. As the final matches continued, Concord took a seven-point lead, but when the 171-pound matches were finished, the Crimson Tide were in a four-point hole. A nerve-racking overtime win by Marshall Gleason over Londonderry’s Cody Rideout for the 215-pound title pulled Concord within two points.
After Timberlane’s heavyweight lost, the Crimson Tide’s hopes moved to their heavyweight, Dan Herrick, who took the mats, unknown to him, with the state title at stake. Down, 1-0, Herrick managed two escapes for a 2-1 lead with one minute left in the match. Nashua North’s Sean Reed, who’d beaten Herrick earlier in the meet, earned a two-point takedown with 49 seconds left and hung on to win.
“Of course it’s hard not to blame myself,” said a red-faced Herrick, who sat fully uniformed on the mats as Timberlane hugged Reed. “I stood up three or four times but couldn’t turn the move over and get the win.
This one’s gonna sting for a while, a long while.”
Herrick could face Reed at wrestling’s Meet of Champions on Saturday, Feb. 24, where the top six wrestlers of each weight class in Division I and top four in Division II meet.
Also joining Herrick at the M of C are Saltsman; 135-pound champion Alex Buessing; 145-pound runner-up Derek Bisson; 152-pound runner-up Rob Garcia; 160-pound runner-up Harry Paul; Gleason; 119-pound champion Brandon Paige; Pat Boyle, who finished fourth at 171 pounds; Bob Daniel in sixth place at 103 pounds; John Meadows, who placed sixth at 140 pounds; and Levi Byers, the fifth-place finisher at 189 pounds.