RallyNorth.net

Timberlane's young wrestling team matured quickly during the season and | paced by heavyweight champion Brian Nicoll and 103-pound runner-up Cam Sullivan, both juniors | it grew up completely yesterday at the New England Tournament.

The seeds had Andrik Cruz primed for a third straight sectional final disappointment.

Cruz would have none of that. The Methuen High senior, wrestling at 145 pounds, made his third North championship try a winning one, heading up an area contingent of two champs and 15 places moving on to the Division 1 North championships in Bridgewater next weekend.

Technically, Timberlane fell from the ranks of the unbeaten yesterday, but you might be hard pressed to convince many of the Owls that it happened.

And, as it turns out, the Owls may have only added a tie to their record, not a loss, although Lowell disputes that. In a barnburner of a dual meet between the defending Division 1 state champions of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the Owls (14-0-1) rallied from a 27-13 deficit with four straight wins to tie the meet, 27-27, only to temporarily drop the decision on the third criteria, which | by federation rules | is number of pins.

Lowell coach Tim O'Keefe believes that his defending Division 1 state champion Red Raiders still have a lot of work to do to approach last year's squad.

"We're still a work in progress," claims O'Keefe.

Heavyweight Brian Nicoll put an exclamation point on an impressive statement made by the Timberlane wrestling team yesterday at the 54-team Lowell Holiday Tournament.

The Owls, who finished second last year by a point and a half, came back with a vengence to claim their third team crown in four years with 241 points, comfortably ahead of runners-up Concord, N.H., and Winchester, who tied with 210. Pinkerton (120) was sixth, Central Catholic (111) came in eighth and Salem, N.H. (102<1/2>) tied for 10th.