Maine Amateur Wrestling Alliance

The York High School wrestling team started its season the way it did the previous six — honoring one of their own.

The Wildcats hosted Morse High School, Kennebunk High School and Lincoln Academy on Saturday at the seventh annual Ken Sullivan Duals.

Sullivan was a former assistant coach with the school's wrestling team and was killed in an automobile accident in 2001.

York coach Wally Caldwell and his team presented Sullivan's widow, Sharon, with flowers before the match. Sullivan's son, Nolan, is an assistant with the wrestling team.

"Nolan has been a great addition to our program," Caldwell said.

York went 2-2 on the day and placed second to Morse.

"It was a very interesting day," Caldwell said. "We learned about our kids and ourselves. The kids made some mistakes and the coaches made some mistakes."

York started the day with a 52-27 victory over Lincoln Academy.

"We beat them pretty convincingly and by and large we wrestled well," Caldwell said.

York then lost to Morse, 48-35.

"We had four or five kids wrestle well and some of the younger kids who may have done better against Lincoln Academy were overmatched against Morse."

York also defeated Wells, 53-27, and lost to Kennebunk, 42-34.

Junior Rhea Goyetche (103 pounds), senior Billy Gauthier (140), sophomore Christian Bennett (152) and senior Ben Hecht (160) all went undefeated on the day.

Sophomore Chris Mendoza, at 125 pounds, went 3-1.

"Chris had a strong effort Saturday," Caldwell said. "He was one of those kids who came on strong at the end of last year and it looks like he's continuing that."

Caldwell was extremely proud of the effort of junior Robert Calnan. Calnan, who weighs 178 pounds, lost a wrestle-off to freshman Austin Wallace in the 189-pound weight class, but was more than willing to wrestle at the vacant 215-pound class when asked by Caldwell. Calnan won his match against Wells by pin, but was pinned himself in his other three matches.

"He only got one win, but he wrestled tremendously," Caldwell said. "He did a great job for us, he was one of our highlights. He wrestled up in weight and just wrestled tough. You really couldn't see the weight difference out there because of his intensity. It was great to see."

York freshman Mitchell Finitz won his matches against Lincoln Academy and Kennebunk.

Freshman Phil Solomine won his match at 140 pounds against Lincoln Academy, while sophomore Brad Stephens won his 171-pound matches against Lincoln Academy and Wells. Sophomore John Freitag won at 125 against Wells, while freshman Mickey St. Denis won by pin at 285 pounds against Wells.

York will host Fryeburg and Traip Academy tonight and will travel to Dover, N.H., on Saturday for a four-team meet at St. Thomas. Caldwell is looking forward to Saturday.

"It's another opportunity for our kids to wrestle someone they don't know and work on some things," Caldwell said.