RallyNorth.net

Timberlane's young wrestling team matured quickly during the season and | paced by heavyweight champion Brian Nicoll and 103-pound runner-up Cam Sullivan, both juniors | it grew up completely yesterday at the New England Tournament.

Six days after the New England Patriots failed to make history, the Greater Lawrence wrestling team made a lot of it yesterday at the Division 2 North Sectional at Beverly High School.

The Reggies, who are the defending Division 2 dual-meet champions, overwhelmed the 12-team field to finish first with 278 points, placing seven in the finals, crowned four champions, placed all 14 wrestlers (top six) and advanced 12 to next week's Division 2 state meet at Reading.

Methuen senior John Sughrue didn't get the match he would have preferred, but he had plenty of consolation yesterday at the Methuen Invitational.

Because he moved up a weight class to 130 pounds this year, there was no showdown with Salem star Trevor Dearden, but both Sughrue and Dearden came away big winners.

A year ago Tewksbury tuned up on Triton, this year the Vikings made Tewksbury earn the victory in a one-match swing, 44-34. Kostas Themelis (135) won on points 8-0, Shane McDonnell had a pin in 1:41, Colton Blanchette had a pin in 0:46, and Joe Chandler also had a pin 1:14. But, Zach Welch once again stole the show in a captain on captain match pinning Paul Bunyan at 3:07 after he had been down on points 5-0.