Bowman, Spencer win in New Haven

Kirk Jenkins knew when the season started that his St. Bernard wrestling team was going to be a better tournament team than a dual meet team.
The Saints proved him right Saturday night at the State Open wrestling championships at the New Haven Athletic Center. Lucas Bowman captured an individual state title at 189-pounds and the Saints finished seventh, best among the local teams involved with 46 points.
That point total was far behind that of Danbury, which finished with 124 points, but Jenkins was more than happy to finish best out of the ECC schools.
“It was important,” Jenkins said. “We talked about it and I told the guys who came here — I call them my five horses — that we were going to come over here and make some noise in the State Open. They impressed me.”
Bowman was the most impressive. The East Lyme transfer who failed to make the final in the Eastern Connecticut Conference championship, came up big in New Haven.
The senior pinned his way to the final where he ran into Dillon Ritchie of Southington. Ritchie finished second in Class LL and came in sporting a 34-3 record, but Bowman scored a pair of takedowns early to grab the advantage.
“I was trying to avoid him and push him, try to get him even more open than he was,” Bowman said.
Bowman allowed Ritchie back into the match with a series of escapes before getting a neutral and a takedown to give him a four-point lead. Ritchie scored a reversal late, but ran out of time.
“I’ve been working towards this all my high school career,” Bowman said. “People have said I would never do it, so I just came out here and did whatever I could.”
Bowman finished with 22 of the Saints points. Michael Daly added the others as he scored a fourth-place finish.
The only other local champion hailed from East Lyme and it was not Ryan Clarke. Ross Spencer continued his undefeated ways as he made it 41 matches in a row without a loss, winning with a win by pin at 103 pounds over the always-difficult Rob Lonergan of Jonathan Law in two-minutes, 54 seconds. It was the only pin of the finals.
“I didn’t expect to get a pin,” Spencer said. “I didn’t expect to do as well as I did in all of my matches (Saturday).”
Thanks to Spencer’s win and Clarke’s third-place finish at 140-pounds, the Vikings finished eighth with 45 1⁄2 points, just ahead of Ledyard.
Caleb Morth made it to the Open final for the Colonels, but lost to Tucker Schaefer of Danbury, 8-0.
“I knew it was going to be a tough match,” Morth said. “He beat me earlier in the season.”
Just as tough a loss was suffered by Killingly senior Brandon Thuotte, who suffered a takedown and a back-point early in the match, came back to get a takedown of his own, but lost to Rob Ferrante of Shelton, 3-2.
“I made a good run at it this year, but I was surprised he got three back points and I thought I had two on the cradle in the third period,” Thuotte said.
NFA’s Pat Sawyer, who missed a month of the season with torn ligaments in his foot, came back to win the Class LL state championship a week ago and made it to the Open final, where he lost to Tim Vollaro of Somers 11-3.
“I came back refreshed and thought I was ready to go,” Sawyer said. “It was nice to get here and I did better than I thought I was going to.”
There were different ideas as to the lack of success on the team side for some, but Waterford coach Chris Gamble who saw his “M” division champion Lancers finish 14th with 39 points, said a big reason could have been fatigue for both his team and Bacon Academy, which finished with only seven points.
“The amount of matches these kids wrestle to get to this point is unbelievable and you get to this point and the mental part of it takes over,” Gamble said. “You have a sick kid out here, not on his ‘A’ game, it’s not going to get done.”
Montville coach Gary Wilcox said the competition certainly weeded out the better wrestlers from the rest of the field.
“I saw a lot of close matches here and the top six wrestlers here are definitely the top six. I didn’t see anyone sneak in,” Wilcox said.
One Montville competitor Wilcox was very happy with was Jessica Bennett, who became the first female to qualify to wrestle in State Open competition. It ended fast for the senior, as she lost to Griswold’s Ron Allen, 6-4, in her 103-pound opener. Bennett then fell to Cam Barnard of Fairfield Warde, 4-2, in a consolation match.
“I got caught having one of those tough matches where it was hard to keep your focus and score the points you need to,” Bennett said of the opening match. “All it really takes at this level is one mistake and I made that one mistake.”
Wilcox said the lack of focus on Bennett’s part could have been because of the commotion she caused just by taking to the mat.
“I know she felt a little pressure being the first girl to perform and, sometimes, that will freeze you a little bit,” Wilcox said. “I think that happened a little bit, but I’m not disappointed with what she showed at all. I think she did a marvelous job.”