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Owls roar to unbeaten season

CONCORD — The showdown became a mismatch Thursday night.

In a battle of unbeatens, Timberlane crushed Concord 55-16 to finish its second straight unbeaten season (19-0) and win its 48th straight meet over three seasons and 172nd straight over New Hampshire teams dating back t0 2007.

The Owls were supposed to be vulnerable this year after graduating 10 seniors but, when the chips were down, they were at their best and no more so than against Concord (19-1).

"I'm just so proud of this group to go 19-0," said Timberlane coach Barry Chooljian. "We had some ups and downs but when we had big duals like tonight, our kids really stepped up."

Moving up a weight class, Antonio Pallaria started the meet with a second period pin at 152 pounds. Concord won the next four weight classes but only had one pin and 16 points, which was more than a moral victory. A 6-3 setback at 160 by sophomore Adam Marquis and a 6-2 loss by Tyler Paquin at 195 were particularly encouraging.

"When they didn't score a lot of points in the upper weights, we knew we were in good shape."

In fact,  Chris Lund started off an Owl barrage with a pin at 220, Marcos Colon had a major decision at heavyweight and the Owls then had six pins in the next seven matches and a 7-1 decision in the other match.

Konrad Parker (106), Nicl Roeger (113), John Leavitt (120) and Connor McGonagle (138) all had first period pins.

"I didn't anticipate a (lopsided) score like this but our kids came to wrestle and once we got a little momentum, we couldn't be stopped," said Chooljian.