SANFORD — Newcomers impressed and veterans showed they just keep getting better Saturday at the Spartan Wrestling Annual Tournament, regarded as the toughest regular-season high school competition in Maine.

Shawsheen Tech of Billerica, Massachusetts – a new team to the Spartan lineup – dominated the two-day competition as it won the team title with 240.5 points. Danbury, Connecticut, placed second with 175 points among the 22 programs in attendance.

Maine teams Massabesic (163.5), Sanford (143) and Bonny Eagle (132) rounded out the top five.

Two Maine wrestlers who made impressive Spartan Wrestling debuts were Marshwood/Traip freshman Kylan Berry, who won the 106-pound division, and Biddeford/Thornton’s Joe Lathwood, a junior at Thornton, who won the 157-pound class.

Berry, 14, lives in Kittery and attends Traip Academy. This is the first season Traip has joined Marshwood as an official co-operative team. Berry improved to 23-0 and finished off his tournament with an impressive 16-0 technical fall against Ben Mann of Timberlane Regional High from Plaistow, New Hampshire, with the match being stopped in the second period.

A poised and controlled wrestler, Berry won a state middle school title and placed third in New England as an eighth-grader.

“I’m very happy. I came in and I knew I was going to win, but I also knew it was going to be a tough tournament,” Berry said. “I just have fun. I love the sport.”

Lathwood moved to Maine prior to this school year. His father is in the Air Force, working as a recruiter, so Lathwood began wrestling in Virginia as a 6-year-old, moved to Illinois, then won a state title in Hawaii as a freshman.

Extremely quick on his feet, Lathwood put on a take-down show in the third period of his championship match, turning a 4-1 lead after the second period into an 18-5 major decision win against Massabesic’s Jack Harriman. It was just Harriman’s second loss this season.

“I wanted to see him before states,” Harriman said. “He’s a real slick wrestler. He’s a reactive wrestler.”

Lathwood said one of his primary goals is to record 500 takedowns this season. In his match against Harriman, Lathwood allowed Harriman a one-point escape and then quickly took him down again on multiple occasions. Toying with an opponent can be a calculated risk, but Lathwood said it also makes sense.

“If I can’t turn them then, I let them loose,” Lathwood said. “I’m just working on my takedowns and building the pace.”

Harriman’s Massabesic teammates, Issac Boulard and Dom Bubar, both seniors, came away with individual titles to pace the Mustangs’ third-place showing.

Boulard won the 113-pound class, beating Sanford’s Chris Chaplick, 12-6. Bubar never let Marshwood junior Jack Anderson get into the 165-pound final, scoring a quick takedown and then finishing the match with a pin in 55 seconds.

Bubar said he was motivated by a narrow loss in the Spartan finals last season.

“I was mad last year when I lost and I wanted to come back and win this year so I can have a Noble (Invitational) win and a Sanford win. I won Noble as a junior,” Bubar said.

Windham/Gray-New Gloucester/Westbrook’s Gavin Tanner is another senior who scored his first victory at the Spartan tourney. The 175-pounder has improved throughout his career and came on strong late last year to win the state’s New England Qualifier tournament after placing second at the Class A championship.

Tanner was impressive in a 13-3 championship round win against Camden Hills’ Riley Turner-Watts. Tanner placed third at last year’s Spartan meet.

“I put in a lot of work in the offseason after my sophomore year and I got a taste of what I could do last year,” Tanner said. “I’m always looking to get better. Stay humble.”

With an eye toward the oncoming snowstorm, and considering travel for teams like Danbury, the meet was put on speed dial, with five mats used early in the competition and the first-place, third-place and fifth-place matches run simultaneously.

Other Maine wrestlers to take home championship titles were Lucas Libby of Mountain Valley, a 10-2 winner against Marshwood’s Cody Bubier at 150 pounds; Lucas Burns of Scarborough, a 3-0 winner against Ben Ronca of York at 190; Canton Hill of Sanford, who pinned Shane Raposo of Cumberland, Rhode Island, at 215; and Windham/GNG/Westbrook’s Griffin Moreau, who pinned Nathan Malloy of Wells in the first round at 285.

Other runner-up finishers from Maine were Ayden Cofone of Windham (120), Chase Frost of Bonny Eagle (126), Dyllan Davis of Wells (132) and Landon Pease of Camden Hills (138). Cofone had to forfeit his final because of illness.

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