By Kim J. Harmon

KEENE, New Hampshire – Fresh off a solid finish at the Guilford Wrestling Tournament (four wrestlers reached semi-finals, two reached the finals, and one took home a championship), the Newtown High School wrestling team took off this week (Wednesday) for the 30th annual Keene Invitational Wrestling Tournament in Keene, New Hampshire.

The Keene High School Blackbirds – Newtown coach Alan Potter’s alma mater – was the defending champion of its own tournament and hosted 11 teams at its annual tournament. The tournament boasted 16 teams last year, but four schools from Manchester, New Hampshire, opted not to attend and Sanford, Maine was reportedly unable to send a team because of internal problems.

Newtown High School, Winnisquam Regional of Bristol (NH) and Winnacunnet Regional of Hampton (NH) join the fray in the year 2000.

The Nighthawks went into the tournament seeded third. Bristol East – which won its own invitational tournament earlier in the month – earned the first seed while Keene, the defending champions, were seeded second.

The tournament began in the morning on Wednesday and finished up with the championship matches somewhere around 7 pm. Check out the local results next week, along with a recap of the goings-on at the Danbury Invitational Tournament this weekend.

Weigh-ins for the Danbury Tournament will be at 7:30 am on Saturday, December 30, with competition set to begin at 9 am. Like the Guilford and Keene Tournaments, competition will run throughout the day with the semi-finals and finals matches to be held in the late afternoon and early evening.

The Nighthawks will return to South-West Conference competition on Thursday, January 4, when they travel to Stratford to take on the Red Devils. Weigh-in is scheduled for 6 pm with the match to begin at 7 pm.

Two days later, the ‘Hawks – now 2-0 in the SWC – will travel to the Bristol Central Tournament on Saturday, January 6.