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Owls,Hillies deliver

It was an outstanding day for Timberlane Saturday at its own invitational, but it was pretty darn good for Haverhill as well.

The host Owls had a whopping 11 finalists in the 16-team field and placed first with 290 points, to finish far ahead of runner-up Franklin (176), which was recently ranked the No. 1 team in Massachusetts.

Haverhill was a distant third (127) but the Hillies crowned five champions and 145-pound Hillie senior Jake Nicolosi was named the tourney Outstanding Wrestler.

Wrestling in the toughest weight class in the tourney, Nicolosi — who just returned from a knee injury — trailed Timberlane standout Nick Pallaria 5-2 early in the match but then stormed back to win 7-5 and remain unbeaten (13-0) on the year.

Other winner for the Hillies were Ben Davoli (113), who defeated Timberlane's Konrad Parker 7-0 in the finals,  Edgar Feliciano (132), Steven Wise (152) and heavyweight Jay Levy. 

Feliciano upset two higher seeds prior to the finals, Wise defeated Franklin star Kenny Sauer for the second time this year and Levy won 2-1 in the finals.

Overall, however, the day belonged to the Owls, whose B team placed fifth in the field. Of the 11 finalists, five came away with crowns.

Junior Jake Rousseau started the championships for the Owls with a pin in the 120-pound finals, Codey Wild moved up a weight and prevailed with a pin at 138, sophomore Cooper Kelley (182) had a first period pin, freshman Niko Langlois rallied with a late pin for first at 195 and Chris Lund won his third tournament in three weeks, pinning his man at just 1:05 in the finals.

Among those placing second, both from the B team, were freshmen Braden Perras (138) and Kaleb Moley (182), who had a stunning win in the semifinals. Trailing 12-1 late in the third perios, he pinned Franklin's Dylan Nawn, the No. 1 seed.

"I was very happy with our performance — we had a lot of guys wrestle well," said Timberlane coach Barry Chooljian. "We still have work to do, but this was a positive day for sure."