New Haven — New London's Jacob Commander took the long road to qualifying for the 2019 New England Championships.

After losing a difficult 9-7 decision to Trumbull's Joseph Palmieri in Friday night's 182-pound quarterfinals — Commander's first loss of the season — the New London senior bounced back with four wins on Saturday, including a 9-4 win over Palmieri in the consolation final, to finish third in the State Open wrestling tournament at the Floyd Little Athletic Center.

The third-place finish qualifies Commander for the New England tournament next weekend in Providence, the only local wrestler to qualify. The only other local place-winner was Ledyard's Cole Dirico (138), who finished sixth.

Earlier Saturday, Commander pinned Newington's Aidan Lozada in 1:59, pinned McMahon's Malik Goethe in 4:11 and decisioned Class LL champ Andrew Nanai of Greenwich 10-4.

Eastern Connecticut Conference and Class M champion Killingly had the lone finalist as David Charron (106) lost to Xavier's Michael Rapuano, 11-8. Derek Turner (170) added a third and Mike Charron (113) a fourth for the Redmen, who tied for 12th in the team standings with Wethersfield (60 points). Danbury cruised to the team title with 158 points and Xavier was second with 108.

The only other ECC place-winners were Griswold's Johnny Palmer (fourth at 195) and Lyman Memorial/Windham Tech's Jackson Archer (fifth at 126).

Boys' basketball

• Second-seeded Old Lyme pulled away in the second half for a 54-37 victory over No. 7 Portland in the Shoreline Conference quarterfinals. Aedan Using had 20 points and 12 rebounds for the Wildcats (17-4) who host No. 3 Valley Regional in Tuesday's semifinals at 7 p.m. Old Lyme beat Valley 59-50 back on Dec. 20. Quinn Romeo added eight points, four steals and three blocks for the Wildcats, who outscored Portland 30-16 in the second half.

Fencing

• Waterford swept girls' team titles in foil and epee during the ECC championship meet at Griswold. NFA won the boys' foil and Fitch the boys' epee.

Individually, Fitch's Sneha Kumar was the individual girls' foil champion followed by Waterford's Alex Cole, Waterford's Willow Yang and Bacon Academy's Autumn Hannah, while Bacon's Ellen McIntyre won the girls' epee followed by Waterford's Jenna Morin, NFA's Phoebe Drupa and Waterford's Melissa Vine.

In boys' foil, NFA's Ishan Walia, Ryan Smith and Andrew Giroux finished 1-2-3, respectively, followed by St. Bernard's Rodrigo Mariano, and in boys' epee, Fitch's Ron Pfisterer was first, teammate Gabe Reigelsberger was second, NFA's Kameron Patenaude was third and Ledyard's Eric Banach fourth.

Gymnastics

• Woodstock Academy successfully defended its CIAC Class S team championship, finishing with 143.5 to easily outdistance the field. Stonington took home silver by placing second with 130.675 points and Shoreline Conference champion Old Lyme finished withh with 121.7 points

In the other championship meets, Greenwich won the Class L title with 137.95 points (Fairfield Ludlowe was second with 136.80), while Wilton captured the Class M crown with 131.975 points and the Killingly/Putnam/Tourtellotte cooperative program was second with 130.20.

Riflery

• Seth Frates fired a 185 out of 200 to help Grasso Tech win the Connecticut Technical Conference Championship on Friday. Ciselia Colechia, Rick Dunn, Alex Potochniak, Kyle Rarogiewicz, Adam Riffe and Frates all earned all-conference honors for Grasso, which scored 911 points. The Eagles were also the regular season champion.