For Ledyard wrestling, all for one

Groton - As Steve Bilheimer bounced from mat to mat Sunday, it was hard to imagine who was enduring a more grueling afternoon, the head coach or his Ledyard High School wrestling team.

For Bilheimer, however, it was a pleasant problem to have because it meant only one thing: his Colonels were enjoying a successful day.

Ledyard sent all 14 wrestlers to the medal stand in one of the most dominant team performances in the history of the Eastern Connecticut Conference tournament and cruised to the championship at Fitch High School.

The Colonels, in ending Bacon Academy's three-year reign, finished with 262 points, nearly 100 points better than runner-up Windham, which finished with 174.

The Whippets, by the way, are no slouch. The Small Division champions are ranked eighth in the state. Ledyard is ranked fourth.

"It's always special," said Bilheimer, who has guided the Colonels to five ECC titles. "Every year is so different because the personnel changes, but to have all 14 kids place ... that's really unbelievable and shows how dominant we were this weekend."

Ledyard had two champions - Alex Manwaring at 160 pounds and Josh Lawrence at 220 - to go along with four second-place finishes, four thirds, three fourths and a sixth.

Manwaring beat East Lyme's Jake Kalleher 10-4 to win his second ECC title while Lawrence won his first title with a 5-1 win over Bacon's P.J. Sawicki.

"We're not a very vocal team," Lawrence said. "You won't see a lot of 'rah-rah' screaming from us, but we're still very supportive of each other. Our belief is if we take care of our own match, then the team aspect will take care of itself."

Mission accomplished.

Lawrence and Manwaring were all-state players on Ledyard's football team, which reached the Class M finals before losing to Ansonia.

In fact, half of the Colonels' wrestling lineup in the ECC tournament played football - Lawrence, Manwaring, Tom Finney (third at 145), Ryan Lyons (second at 152), Colin Grim (fourth at 170), Dallas Smith (sixth at 195) and Ben Morales (third at 285).

"They really got beat up in their playoff games," Bilheimer said. "So I tried not to push them too hard early and I let a lot of them sit out our first tournament.

"It was really quite a balancing act because I had to ease them in, yet push them to get in wrestling shape ... which is much different than football shape. But once we got to January it was OK to push them and challenge them to focus on improving."

As for the other locals, Norwich Free Academy had an impressive showing, edging Bacon for third place 165.5-161.1. NFA had two finalists and Cody Murphy won the most exciting matchup in the finals, a 10-9 win over Lyons at 152.

Three others remained unbeaten: reigning New England champion Brandon Walsh of Griswold (138), who pinned Finney in 3:25; Montville's Dan Kurasz (170), who decisioned East Lyme's Alex Cusano 9-2; and Griswold's Aaron Wing (182), who pinned his cousin, Lyman Memorial/Windham Tech's Kyle Wing, in 1:38.

Two wrestlers won titles for the second straight year. East Lyme's Kareem Small (106) decisioned Ledyard's Devon MarcAurele 4-0 and Bacon's Matt McAllister (113) beat Fitch's Nick Perrotta 9-0. Sophomore Chris Elrod (120) gave Bacon its second champion with a 10-4 win over Ledyard's Mike Graff, Waterford's Tom Millaras (145) overcame an 8-3 deficit in the third period to pin NFA's Tyler Courter in 4:58 and Lyman's Darick Orange (285) scored a takedown in the final 20 seconds to edge Windham's Wolfgang Fiasconaro 3-2.

Windham's Miguel Calixto (132) won his third straight ECC title and was voted Outstanding Wrestler by the coaches.

c.banning@theday.com