By Kevin Sjoberg
Sports Reporter
The Caribou wrestling team will head into this weekend’s Class B state championships at Morse High School in Bath with five meet qualifiers and three others who will serve as alternates. This comes after the Vikings turned in another solid performance, this time at the Eastern Maine Class B championships held in Belfast Saturday.
Caribou came in fifth place out of 10 teams by scoring 65 points. Coach James “Chico” Hernandez’s team boasted a third-place finisher in the 195 lb. weight division in senior Matt Manter and a quartet of fourth-place finishers in Kyle Morris in 120, Axios Gerakaris in 145, Jacob Bither in 170 and Colton Conley in 220. Caribou wrestlers placing fifth and serving as state meet alternates are Noah Cousins in 106, Rebecca King in 113 and Dustin DeMerchant in 182.
“It was by far the toughest regional that I have ever coached during my four years at Caribou High School,” Hernandez said.
Camden Hills took the team title with 203 points, followed by Ellsworth with 194.5 and Foxcroft Academy, the three-time Class C state champs who moved up a class this year, taking third place with 159. Then it was Belfast with 82, Caribou and Maine Central Institute of Pittsfield (64), Hermon (50), Medomak Valley of Waldoboro (43), Mount Desert Island (22) and Oceanside of Rockland (10).
Hernandez said that Manter turned in a memorable performance in his final regional. He defeated Andrew Rediker of Hermon by fall in the quarterfinals and then lost on a pin in the semis against the No. 1 seed, Jared Gilbert of Camden Hills.
In the consolation semifinals, Manter was matched up against Medomak Valley’s Owen Gilbert, who had defeated Manter at both the regionals and state meet a year ago. The Viking senior came through with a victory by fall to set up another meeting against Rediker in the consolation finals. Manter was able to improve his head-to-head record against Rediker to 5-0 on the season by taking an 8-5 decision.
Now it is on to the state meet for a Caribou team that Hernandez said has exceeded all expectations.
“We had a lot of wrestlers lost to graduation, had two blue chip transfers to Cony, some ineligible wrestlers and we gave up 24 points every dual meet due to forfeits,” he said, “so it was supposed to be a rebuilding year.
“Now we are looking ahead to Saturday and have a lot to do this week in a short amount of time,” Hernandez added.
