SANFORD — The high school regional wrestling tournaments are two things at once: meets with championship hardware for teams and individuals and, more importantly, the staging area for team success at the state championships.

Noble High, one of the premier programs in Maine, set itself up for a repeat state title on Saturday at Sanford High. The Knights won the Class A South regional, scoring 201.5 points with three individual champions, four runner-ups and 10 of their 14 wrestlers advancing to the state meet with a top-four finish.

“We know the stakes here. We’re not going to give up anything,” said Cody Marchand, a Noble senior and the 144-pound regional champion. “Everyone’s pretty much burned out by now, but you just have to push through.”

Marchand said he expects the Class A state meet next Saturday at Augusta’s Cony High to come down to a battle between Noble and Massabesic. The Mustangs, who placed second in the regional with 176 points, missed out on a few expected advancements and will send seven wrestlers to the state meet. But Massabesic had the most individual champions with five, including wins by brothers Isaac Boulard, a senior at 113 pounds, and Evan Boulard, a freshman at 126 – both coming against Noble wrestlers, Owen Gray and Tucker Levasseur, respectively.

“We had six in the regional finals and I feel like we can have six in the state final, and I feel all six can pull it off, myself included,” Isaac Boulard said.

Sanford finished a solid third in its home gym with 156 points and one individual champion, Richie Simpson, who took the 175-pound title despite being the No. 4 seed. The Spartans qualified eight wrestlers for states. Bonny Eagle, fourth with 121 points, also qualified eight wrestlers, all of them coming out of the consolation rounds.

Noble’s other individual champions were sophomore Brady Ouellette at 120 and Kaden Dustin at 138. Ouellette, who is 5-foot-10 with long arms and large hands, controlled his championship match against Massabesic’s Austin Dewitt for an 8-0 win.

“I always look to win, but what I really want to do is to get better as a wrestler,” Ouellette said. “Try hard, wrestle hard. As a team, we always want to win. I guarantee we’ll work 10 times harder than all the other teams.”

Massabesic’s other victories came from Nicholas Chenard at 132, Jack Harriman at 157 and Dominick Bubar at 165. Chenard and Bubar won their final matches by pin. Harriman scored a 14-5 decision.

It was Chenard’s third regional title. He’s been a state meet runner-up the past two seasons. His second-period pin against Sanford’s Gabe Roberge made the win a little sweeter, he said.

“It definitely was not how I expected the match to go at all,” Chenard said. “I just try to think of each match as six minutes of my life and to give everything I have.”

Marshwood/Traip, which won six of seven Class A titles from 2012-18, showed it is rebounding well from some lean seasons, finishing fifth with 108.5 points. The co-op team had two individual champions. Kylan Berry, a freshman from Traip Academy, beat Kennebunk’s Grisam Shields, 4-0, at 106 pounds. Cody Bubier took a testy 4-1 decision against Kennebunk’s Elan “Moose” Keys at 150.

Kennebunk’s Owen Bourque won the 285-pound division.

Luke Burns, a senior from Scarborough/Gorham, needed a late third-period takedown to defeat Indi Backman of Cheverus/Falmouth, 5-4. Burns was the 182-pound state champion as a junior. He had trouble keeping Backman on the mat, but knowing he was down by a point, Burns said he bided his time before taking his winning shot.

“As much as wrestling is a super physical sport – I play football, and football’s like a breeze compared to wrestling – on top of that it’s really a mental sport,” Burns said. “It’s like high-intensity, fighting chess.”

Deering’s Pedro Lombi claimed his second consecutive regional title, winning the 215-pound division with a third-period pin against Evan Metivier of Cheverus/Falmouth.

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