BANGOR – Evidently, the Lisbon Greyhounds feel they have some lost time to make up for.

After winning their first state championship in 38 years last season, the Greyhounds came back to make it two in a row Saturday as they put up 200.5 points to comfortably outdistance runnerup and chief rival Dexter by 33.5.

A blend of young talent and veteran leadership, plus a few intangibles that turned this into another special season, were the main ingredients in Lisbon’s Maine Class C title recipe this season.

Of the 13 wrestlers the Greyhounds brought to states, 11 placed in the top four. Six won individual state titles, one was a runnerup, and one other took a bronze.

“Everybody scoring points for us was really a key because Dexter has a lot of depth,” said Lisbon head coach Mark Stevens. “Last year was a good memory and I think that played a part too.”

It was third-place finisher Jamie Englebert who provided much of Lisbon’s inspiration as the 275-pound class wrestler came all the way back from a broken leg suffered in the Western Maine football playoff semifinals to qualify for states on the last possible day.

“The inspiration of our heavyweight was big for us,” Stevens said. “He practiced [last] Friday for maybe a half hour or so, and Saturday was the last qualifying day but he made it in.”

Simply qualifying would have been impressive enough, but the No. 2 Western Maine seed went a step or three further and finished third after advancing all the way to the consolation finals and pinning Mike Williams from Dirigo of Dixfield.

“The semifinal round was the place-setter for us and for this tournament,” Stevens said. “We had four kids who wrestled their way back up through and into the consolation finals.”

Meanwhile, Dexter was trying to overcome a tough start as one of their wrestlers was disqualified in the second round for arguing a call. That meant a loss of four points for the Tigers as a DQ results not only in a loss in that match, but the forfeiture of all points earned up to that point.

“I think early on, with that happening, they [Lisbon] jumped right out quick to a pretty good lead and kind of got rolling,” said coach David Gudroe, whose Tigers finished runnerup to the Greyhounds for the second straight year.

Gudroe estimated the DQ cost Dexter eight to 16 points, but it wouldn’t have been enough to catch Lisbon. If the Tigers had been able to avoid the DQ and qualify a couple more wrestlers for the finals, that may have made the difference.

“You can’t take anything away from Lisbon. They certainly earned it,” Gudroe said.

Dexter also qualified 13 wrestlers, 10 of whom qualified for finals. The Tigers almost matched Lisbon’s output with five individual state champs (Chris Barkac in 103, Vinny Greene in 140, Kevin Armstrong in 145, Aaron Thomas in 152, and Josh Bishop in 171). Dexter also had two runners-up and one third-place finisher.

Barcak got things off to strong start in the championship round as he pinned Monmouth’s Aaron Kaluzynski with the score tied and 51 seconds left in the third period.

“He put his arm up and I saw an opening so I just went right there,” said the Dexter freshman. “We needed a pin so I tried my hardest to get one.”

That brought up the 112 final between Dexter’s Keith Thompson and Lisbon’s Troy Clark. Thompson took a 4-0 lead on points, but Clark reeled off six straight. Thompson refused to give up and managed to tie it with an escape with just seven seconds left in regulation. Clark won it with a takedown 23 seconds into OT.

It was a great end of the season for Dexter’s “Middle Murderer’s Row” as Greene, Armstrong and Thomas swept the titles in 140, 145 and 152. It was the second straight for Thomas, who cut the medal he won last year in half and gave one half to Armstrong, who was unable to compete due to a staph infection. This year, they each got their own, complete medallions.

Thomas got his with a 3-1 overtime decision over Bucksport’s Travis Pelletier on a takedown which was just barely inbounds.

“If you take him down and you drag your toes inside the mat, it still counts,” Thomas explained. “It’s kind of like in football where your toes have to be in-bounds.”

Bishop, who was pinned by Penobscot Valley’s Keith Champion in the East C regional title match last week, was given the Pelletier Award as the outstanding wrestler of the Class C meet.

Other state titlists from the East are Bucksport’s Dave Maguire in 130 and Foxcroft Academy’s Trey Merrill in 275.

The win couldn’t have been sweeter for Maguire, who was top-seeded in his weight class last year, but couldn’t make his weight and was unable to compete at states.

“For the weight management, I was motivated by last year,” the senior said. “But for today, this was motivation on its own.”

Merrill was one of two Ponies to make it to the championship finals, but Foxcroft still managed to finish third with 116 points as four of the five other wrestlers who advanced to the consolation finals won.

“I started out the season overweight by about 25 pounds so I didn’t even start wrestling until later in the season,” said Merrill, a junior who has only been wrestling for two years. “I lost my first match, but I’ve been doing pretty well since.”