The Londonderry High School Wrestling team hosted the NHIAA Division I State Championships on Saturday, Feb. 17, and two Lancers came away with first place victories for the second straight year.
Londonderry junior, David Pento Jr., cruised through his four bouts in the 175-pound weight class on Saturday to take first-place for the second consecutive year.
Senior Lancer, Patrick O’Connor, also came away with his second straight State Championship, but his finals win came with some final second heroics.
O’Connor had three wins to get him to the finals, but in that match the senior needed to muster up some last-second heroics to force an 8-6 overtime win in the championship match.
Leading up to the finals, O’Connor had fall victories in his first two matches and received a 7-0 decision victory in the semi-finals over Gavin McConnell of Bedford.
In the finals, O’Connor trailed in his match against Spencer Sierra of Timberlane until the final seconds of the third period, where he was awarded a stalling point, followed by control points to sent the match into an overtime period, where O’Conner was quickly awarded control for the win and the celebration.
All of Pento’s wins came by way of falls, two of them were 18-0 technical falls and others were pins. His championship bout, the second of his 18-0 victories, was against Tucker Watson of Bedford High School, where the championship win never seemed to be in doubt.
LHS junior, Manny Perez, also placed in the top-two of the state championships winning all of his matches leading up to the finals, where he fell 7-4 to Seth Hastey, and came away with a second place medal. Perez had a close match win in the semi-finals, beating Dylan Suliveras of Windham in a 5-3 decision.
Lucas DeLeon finished with a final match win to get fifth-place at states, pinning Biswas Darji, of Concord for his fourth victory of the day.
Finn Millis also made it to the fifth-place bout, but lost 11-3 to Sam St. Onge for a six-place finish.
As a team, the Lancers took seventh place at the tournement with 114-point, the Salem Blue Devils were the winners, at 234-points, Timberlane Regional was a distant second at 207 and the Bedford Bulldogs took third with 183- points.
Londonderry’s top finishers will head to the State Meet of Champions at Bedford High School on Saturday, Feb. 24, to face the best wrestlers in the states three divisions.