Northeast left little room for suspense in the Class 1A-2A East Region tournament yesterday.
The co-second-ranked Eagles carried a 46-point lead into last night's final round and used championships from Marty and Mike Kusick plus T.R. Fleming to capture the region title.
The host Eagles, who also got second-place finishes from Adrian Spears (189 pounds) and heavyweight Scott Laumann, jumped to an early lead and kept on building.
They held a 36-point lead heading into the consolations, stretched it to 46 going into the championship round and cruised to victory.
Northeast finished with 180.5 points, easily outdistancing defending champion Rising Sun (127).
Southern finished tied for fifth with Parkside with 75 points -- thanks to championships from Tyrone Neal (130) and Tromaine Graves (171) -- and South River took 11th with 43.
Northeast, which fell to Damascus in the Class 1A-2A dual-meet state-title match last Saturday, used the top-three finish of nine wrestlers to rack up points.
The Eagles stumbled a bit in the semifinals, but bounced back to do well in the consolations.
Jay Queer (135), Chris Morrow (145), Tyrone Eaton (152) and Ron Katzenberger (171) helped Northeast with third-place finishes.
"Before the consolations and the finals, I thought we matched up pretty well," said Northeast coach Al Kohlhafer. "We brought in ,, 11 and getting nine in the top three in not bad, not bad at all."
The Kusick twins continued their rolls. Marty Kusick (112, 30-0) won his fourth straight region title with a 5-0 decision over Seth Garvin from Rising Sun.
Kusick had more problems before the tournament began than during the competition. While in the gymnasium on Friday, a volleyball pole fell and hit him on the head, opening a three-stitch cut.
Kusick -- who actually wrestled one match before being stitched -- needed to wear some extra head-gear but tried not to let it bother him.
"It kind of slowed my momentum," he said. "I just blocked it out. I didn't let it affect me."
Mike Kusick (119, 29-1) won his third region title, topping Ernie Miller from North East of Cecil County, 12-1. Kusick controlled the match and nearly pinned Miller in the final 10 seconds.
Fleming (140) had to work a bit harder, however, rallying from a six-point first period deficit to score an 11-9 victory over Scott Betts from Cambridge-South Dorchester.
Betts put Fleming on his back and jumped to a 7-1 lead in the
first period. Fleming rallied with an escape, takedown and back points for a 7-7 tie. His two back points with just under a minute left in the match gave him the victory.
Fleming had pointed to this match because his one-point loss to Betts landed him in fifth in last year's regionals -- and kept him out of the states.
"I was really waiting for this all year," said Fleming, now 22-7. "I was just hoping he'd be in my weight class."
Both Neal (31-0) and Graves (28-3) dominated their weight classes for Southern. Neal pinned Jeremy Cover of Easton in 2:47 for the title, and Graves pinned Kent County's Chip Conrad at 3:21 for his championship.
South River did not have anyone in the championship round, but the Seahawks did have two third-place finishes. Gene Reid (112) and Travis Murdock (119) scored back-to-back decisions in the consolation finals. Tom Inzer (125) took third for Southern.