Harvey scores first-round win at Bangor mixed martial arts show

BANGOR — Several mixed martial arts teammates from Young’s MMA in the Queen City stepped into the cage at the Cross Insurance Center’s main ballroom Saturday night, Sept. 8 with the same goal but for different reasons.

Most came through quite successfully.

Aaron Lacey, Ryan Sanders and Josh Harvey — who is a Dexter Regional High School graduate — all scored first-round victories among five professional bouts contested as part of New England Fights’ “NEF 35: Wicked Season” show staged before a sellout crowd of 1,200.

Lacey, who since a 4-0 start as a pro had dropped two of his last three fights, rebounded by stopping Jon Lemke of Titan Athletics of Brewer via a rear-naked choke submission at 1:59 of the opening round of their lightweight (155-pound) matchup.

Sanders (17-9), who has been campaigning primarily as a lightweight in recent years, took a welterweight (170-pound) bout against veteran Armando Montoya and won by guillotine choke 4:10 into their match.

Harvey was returning to action after a 16-month layoff and required just 50 seconds to stop journeyman Jay Ellis with a triangle choke.

Fighting for the first time since April 29, 2017, Harvey was the aggressor from the outset of this lightweight clash, picking up Ellis in the opening seconds and slamming him to the mat. Ellis worked his way back up and was on top briefly before Harvey (5-0) landed his submission hold.

In another lightweight battle, promising Caleb Hall of Dixfield scored an impressive stoppage of another Young’s MMA combatant, C.J. Ewer who is a Foxcroft Academy graduate.

Hall (2-0) earned his submission victory by d’arce choke 2:31 into the lightweight matchup against Ewer (3-2), the reigning NEF middleweight (185-pound) champion.

Ernie Clark of the Bangor Daily News contributed to this story.