Mattanawcook’s Jackson Sutherland 2nd at New England wrestling championships
Dexter’s Schobel earns All-New England status
By Ernie Clark, Bangor Daily News Staff
Mattanawcook Academy senior Jackson Sutherland of Lincoln capped off his high school wrestling career Saturday with a second-place finish at the New England championships in Providence, Rhode Island.
Fellow individual state title winners Cole Albert, Isaac Hainer and Deegan Tidswell helped Mattanawcook finish eighth in the team competition overall and first among Maine representatives, with the Class B state champs amassing 51 points.
St. John’s Prep of Danvers, Massachusetts, won its first New England wrestling title, scoring 95 points.
Sutherland won his first three matches in the 170-pound weight class to advance to the championship round of the two-day competition.
“It went pretty good,” Sutherland said. “It was good because I didn’t really wrestle this year against anyone who gave me really decent wrestling looks, and then to have that all at once I think I handled it pretty well.”
Seeded second in his weight class, Sutherland drew a first-round bye and then pinned William Conniff of Wrentham, Massachusetts, at 1:55 of the first round in his only match on Friday. He pinned Haden Bottiglieri of Brookline, Massachusetts, at 1:10 of the opening round in his first match Saturday, then outlasted Spencer Fine of Cumberland, Rhode Island, 5-3 in the semifinals.
“It was pretty tight, a tough one,” Sutherland said. “I had to dig deep and wrestle through a couple of positions I hadn’t been in in a couple of years but I’m glad it ended how it did.”
Sutherland dropped a 9-0 major decision to top-seeded William Ebert of Fairfield, Connecticut, in the championship match.
Ebert, who has committed to wrestle at Division I Binghamton University next season, went undefeated through the competition with one pin and three victories by major decision — winning by between eight and 14 points — without allowing any of his opponents to score a single point.
“He’s just a really good wrestler, really technical and he’s pretty strong, too,” Sutherland said.
Albert, a freshman, joined Sutherland in earning All-New England honors with his second-place finish at 120 pounds. He won his first match but lost his second match before battling back through the consolation bracket where he advanced to the fifth-place bout in the weight class before being ousted from the competition.
Hainer finished 4-2 in the 182-pound class while Tidswell was 2-2 at 113 pounds for the Lynx.
Sutherland concluded his final season with the Lynx with a 50-1 record and his high school career with 169 victories, more than 100 by pin.
He went undefeated against in-state opponents during his three years of competition — the 2021 season was wiped out by COVID-19, and the only losses for the three-time state champion came during the New England championships in 2019, 2020 and 2022.
Those joining Sutherland and Albert among 10 Maine wrestlers who earned All-New England status included Dexter Regional High School senior Nathan Schobel, who placed sixth in the 195-pound division.
Schobel won his first three matches to reach the championship semifinals, then lost once by pin and twice by narrow decisions, the second time in the fifth-place match.
Others from Maine to achieve All-New England status were third-place finishers James Blood of Sanford at 106 pounds, Caden Frost of Bonny Eagle of Standish (132) and Dillon Worster of Oxford Hills of South Paris (195); fourth-place finisher William Orso of York (285); fifth-place finishers Ayden Cofone of Windham/Gray-New Gloucester/Westbrook (113), Brycen Kowalsky of Mount Ararat/Brunswick (126) and Derek Cote (132) of Noble of North Berwick; and sixth-place Spencer Leclair of Mt. Ararat/Brunswick at 152.