Ledyard — In match after match, Windham got ahead. Quickly. And stayed ahead.

"Any time we wrestle Ledyard, it gets exciting," Windham coach Pat Risley said. "It's not hard to get up. This is a fun meet. It's gone back and forth a few years. Our wrestlers went right after it.

"Our 170-pounder tonight was our backup 160-pounder and he went out and outwrestled (his guy). We need kids like that who can step up on big occasions."

Backed by four pins between the 113 and 145-pound weight classes, the third-ranked Windham High School wrestling team overcame a 7-0 deficit to start the match Wednesday night and remained unbeaten with a 44-16 victory over No. 10 Ledyard.

With all the lights turned out in the Ledyard's Judy Standish Gymnasium except for the four banks of lights over the mat, Ledyard got off to a strong start in front of its home crowd, beginning with a 17-5 major decision by Danny Contino at 195 pounds.

Senior Daric Johnson, at 220 pounds, then edged Windham's Seiji Arzuaga in a rematch of last year's State Open semifinals, won by Johnson in double overtime (Johnson was second at the Open and Arzuaga third).

Once again Wednesday, Johnson won what was practically a stalemate in two overtimes, beating Arzuaga 4-1. Johnson executed an escape with about 25 seconds remaining and added a takedown with two seconds to go.

Windham (18-0), however, won five straight to turn things around, starting with a 7-1 decision by Nathan Oaks at 285 and continuing with a 16-9 win for Anthony Flores at 106, which gave the Whippets the lead. Windham got consecutive first-period pins by Julio Flores (113) and Alejandro Garcia (120) and Seb Stultz earned a major decision at 126 to make it 22-7.

Luis Torres (138) and Cullan Contos (145) also won by pin for the Whippets, while Sam Ruiz (152), Henry Gomez (170) and Alex Perez (182) earned decisions.

Christian Fogg earned a 7-5 decision for Ledyard (19-5) at 132 and Collin Crader had the Colonels only pin at 160 pounds.

"I thought they got in our heads a little bit," Crader said of Windham. "They beat us in (the Eastern Connecticut Conference meet) and duals last year. We have a lot of new guys. The younger guys might have been nervous. We'll do a lot better at ECCs."

"We've had better matches," Ledyard coach Steve Bilheimer said. "(Windham) showed a lot of toughness. They were the better team tonight. They didn't leave that question unanswered. They came out and put us on our back right away. We were a little slow tonight. We didn't set up a lot of our offense."

Windham led in all but two matches, with Johnson and Fogg needing to come back from early deficits.

Ledyard (Class M) and Windham (Class S), both defending state champions, will begin the postseason with the ECC championship meet next Saturday at Killingly. Ledyard is in first place in the ECC Large Division, while Windham is the Small Division leader. The teams' dual meet the past few seasons has been on the league-generated schedule, Bilheimer said, but when it's not, Ledyard and Windham still try to meet somehow.

Risley liked the way his team wrestled against Ledyard much better than last Wednesday's 41-27 dual meet victory over Montville, he said.

"We're on a good roll," Risley said. "We still have a few areas of improvement. We have a few weeks left in the season and I hope they stay hungry."

Bilheimer, meanwhile, would like to correct a few things with what he called "basic offense and basic defense."

"Hard work solves everything. Whether you win or lose, hard work solves everything," he said. "Hopefully we can reverse the outcome of a few matches. There were a few weights we thought we had the upper hand that didn't turn out that way."

v.fulkerson@theday.com

Twitter: @vickieattheday