ConVal’s Early Bird wrestling tournament packed the Robert Maguire Gymnasium with blood, sweat and excellence Saturday morning, as 23 teams wrestled over 450 matches to start their seasons with a chaotic and unforgettable experience.
The meet marked a new start for the Cougars, who’ve turned the program over to Kenneth Williams this winter. Former coaches Brian Whittemore and Alex Hautenan were still evident on the ConVal sidelines Saturday, but the team belongs to Williams now, as he’s moved up from the middle school along with son Lane, a freshman. Williams, whose background includes coaching at an elite regional training center, said his biggest learning curve has been teaching the basics to the newcomers.
“We have like 25 kids,” Williams said, “we have 12 freshmen that have never done this before. … We’re kind of on the struggle bus of helping some kids achieve their goals and helping a whole crop of new kids learn this sport. It’s a tough balancing act, and I’m just trying to figure that out, because where I’ve come from before, it’s all elites, all club kids. They know exactly what they’re gonna do. I blow the whistle, they drill what I want, then we work on fine-tuning things, but here, I have to teach them how to get in their stance, and then teach them how to drill.”
The Cougars do have a handful of returning experienced wrestlers. Junior Collin Mao wrestled his way to third at 138 lbs. Saturday, Oliver Smith-Aucoin picked up a pair of wins, as did heavyweight Cayden Park, and while Eli Torres (126 lbs.) didn’t have his best day, he is highly experienced and can be a force.
Freshman Lane Williams joins ConVal highly touted, ranked No. 1 in New England at 120 lbs. according to the Schwartz Report; while a preseason ranking is only worth so much, Lane showed out on Saturday, winning his weight class while allowing only two points against.
Also picking up wins for ConVal were Alistair Armstrong (215 lbs.), Ayden Costi (215 lbs.), Cayden Park (285 lbs.), James Medeiros (157 lbs.), Jayden Merchant (285 lbs.), John Ouellette (138 lbs.) and Kenny Desaulniers (138 lbs.).
The Conant wrestling team is in its first year as a full varsity program and continues to make week-to-week improvements. A year ago, the Orioles were practicing on cobbled-together gym mats; now, they’re fully equipped and up to a six-man squad.
“We’re coming out, we practice hard, we try hard, we’re constantly improving,” said head coach Wes Simpson. “Growth is kind of our style. Kids are showing it. Last year, we came to this tournament, everyone got pinned in every match. We didn’t get wins until our third tournament. And tonight we’ve already got three or four pins, and almost everyone’s had a win today.”
Senior captain Jacob Levesque became the school’s first podium finisher at the previous week’s Kingswood tournament, and he continued his strong showing with a second-place finish Saturday, wrestling in the 190-lb. class while working on cutting his way down to 175 lbs. for their next meet.
“Jacob’s our returning captain, and he’s stepped up very well,” Simpson said. “He makes sure we get the mats ready to go. Everyone’s warmed up, everyone’s stretched. A lot of practices rely on him getting everyone squared away. Being a new team and having some of those new freshmen, some people don’t really know, ‘Hey, what’s a sports team? What are we supposed to do?’ So Jacob’s really good about getting everyone in line up and ready, keeping people motivated. And it’s helping, because now some of the younger kids have someone to look up to and they can see what we should be doing.”
David Levesque wrestled to fourth place at 215 lbs. to give the Orioles a pair of top finishers; also picking up wins were Bryan Tann (285 lbs.), Gabriel Fenton (157 lbs.) and Roland Dumont (144 lbs.)
Mascenic, too, is a program on the rise. Head coach Ben Shippee’s seen his numbers double to 18 in the team’s second year, and they’re getting more competitive, too.
“We had seven new freshmen come out and a couple new sophomores come out,” Shippee said. “So we’ve got a young team — and then we’ve got our guys who helped us start it.”
Seniors Chase Sasner and Dylan Callahan have been with the program from day one, and they’ll serve as captains again in their final season. Sasner wrestled to the quarterfinals at 113 lbs. Saturday, and Callahan picked up a win at 157 lbs.
“Good leadership in the group,” Shippee said. “The room’s been great. The practice room has been great. This is our first time out, first time on a mat for a lot of the new guys, so it’s been a good experience.”
Also picking up wins for the Vikings Saturday were Brodie Honeywell (132 lbs.), Emmit Nichols (120 lbs.), William Austin (150 lbs.), Finnian Shippee (175 lbs.), Noah Lajoie (150 lbs.) and Thomas Wylie (215 lbs.).
While the gym was packed to the brim with wrestlers and fans on Saturday, there was an absence hanging over the crowd as well. The Early Bird meet was the first wrestling event for ConVal since the death of Luis Torres, a 2025 graduate who was one of the school’s top wrestlers. Torres was killed in a car crash in October, and his absence was felt by many — his younger brother Eli, who adorned his headgear with a tribute; his former teammates, and even the incoming freshmen, who fondly remembered Torres leading the Cougars down to help out with the middle school team.
“The old guard is definitely like, ‘Do it for [Luis],” coach Williams said. “And we have a lot of kids that peripherally knew Luis and cared about him and they came out for the team because they wanted to do the same thing that Luis did. That’s been one of the big, the bigger impacts that Luis has had is with him passing, he got a ton of kids to come out and try [wrestling]. They wanted to be like Luis.”