Sophomore Jean Luc Lemieux and senior Cam Crowell put forth championship performances and helped their Pinkerton Academy wrestling squad to a second place overall finish at the New Hampshire Meet of Champions (MOC) at Pinkerton last Saturday, Feb. 23.
Lemieux followed up his fine work at the Division I championship meet a week earlier where he won his
126-pound weight class and was named the meet’s Outstanding Wrestler by repeating as the champion of his weight class against the best grapplers in New Hampshire. And heavyweight grappler Crowell followed up his championship effort at the D-I event by performing the same feat at the MOC.
The Astros tallied 119 points to finish a distant second to the Timberlane Owls of Plaistow (241.50), who won the MOC for the 10th consecutive year. The top three individual finishers in each weight class earned an invitation to the 49th annual New England Interscholastic Wrestling Championships, which will be held this coming weekend at the Providence Career and Technical Center in Rhode Island.
Along with champs Lemieux and Crowell, Pinkerton had Kevin Ell snare third place at 195 pounds to move on to the regionals. Additionally, Dylan Barreiro snagged fourth place in his 170-pound class, Tyler Wilson nabbed fourth place in the 152 class, and Dakota Krol collected fourth at 132 pounds. Other competing grapplers for PA were Eric Daigle at 113 pounds, Brenden Sullivan at 138 pounds, Brett Wilson at 145, Tony Messina in the 160 division, and Hunter Morris at 182 pounds.
In driving to his weight class crown, Jean-Luc Lemieux received a bye in his first-round bout, hammered Lucas Rosa of Winnacunnet in a 12-0 major decision in his first actual contest, notched a default victory in his third match, and pulled out a hard-fought, 2-0 decision over Timberlane’s Ryan Peters in the title match.
“Jean Luc is a very good technical wrestler, and he’s great at countering take downs,” observed PA assis-
tant coach Jim Cherniack. Cam Crowell, who wrestled as a freshman but didn’t participate in his sophomore or junior years, returned this winter as a senior and just throttled the opposition time
after time.
He nabbed a bye in his first bout as Lemieux did, then pinned Milford’s Stephen Dumais, Christian Boucher of Manchester Memorial, and Josh Norman of Nashua South in succession to collect his weight class’s crown.
“His athleticism is huge,” said coach Cherniack of former standout football player Crowell. “He works hard in practice and his work ethic is great.”
Pinkerton head coach Dave Rhoads, who was named the Division I Coach of the Year at the D-I meet a week earlier but wasn’t in attendance because he is recovering from neck surgery, made it to the MOC event as the semifinals were in progress and saw his talented grapplers run through their paces and collect their honors.
