Bilodeau makes his pins stick

Clarification: In a sports story last Thursday ("Bilodeau makes his pins stick"), it was stated that Harvard native Sean Bilodeau was the second Massachusetts wrestler to win a junior national title. In fact, in addition to Wellesley's Rollie Peterkin in 2005, Braintree's Colin Kilrain (like Bilodeau, a future Lehigh University wrestler) won the title at 168 pounds in 1977. Then, the tournament wasn't held annually in Fargo, N.D., but in Iowa City.

HARVARD -- Sean Bilodeau and his family live on a plot of farmland in Harvard with two dogs, a couple of donkeys, a mule, turkeys, chickens, and an ostentation of baby peacocks.

A good number of the nation's top high school wrestlers, however, probably wish Bilodeau were the one living in a cage.

"They weren't too happy," Bilodeau said of his opponents at the junior national championships in Fargo, N.D., late last month, most of whom he humiliated during a stunning undefeated performance that included eight pins in 10 matches.

As a result, the 18-year-old Brooks School graduate, known by most as "Spike," has the Massachusetts -- and national -- wrestling communities buzzing, and he just might be the best wrestler ever to come out of the Bay State.

"One of the best, absolutely," said Harvard University head coach Jay Weiss, who has helped coach Bilodeau since not long after he started wrestling, at age 9. Weiss has been to the last 17 junior nationals in Fargo, and he has never seen anything like what Bilodeau did in late July, when the pins came early and often en route to the 152-pound freestyle championship and the outstanding overall wrestler award.

"I don't know if that's been done before," Weiss said. "A bunch of coaches were talking, and I don't think any of them have seen that."

That's because the competition in the wrestling-hungry Midwest is so balanced that most matches come down to points. But once Bilodeau decided barely a week before the event to attend the tournament, he made quick work of the 90-man field at 152 pounds.

The numbers were mind-boggling, especially in the early rounds. It took Bilodeau 10 seconds to pin his first opponent, and 21 to slam down his second. His third held out nearly 2 1/2 minutes, but then he quickly notched two more pins, in 12 and 26 seconds.

"I've always been a pinner," Bilodeau said. "The main point in wrestling is to get the guy down and put his shoulders on the mat and pin him. That's just what wrestling's about."

So, with the nation's wrestling eyes focused on him, he did it in the semifinals and finals, too. In the semis, he took down Indiana native Andrew Howe, whom many coaches expected to win, late in the first period. In the finals, wrestling Conrad Polz of Illinois on an elevated mat in the spotlight of an otherwise dark, packed gym, Bilodeau lost the first period and trailed late in the second before tossing Polz to the mat.

"All he had to do in that match was get on top," Weiss said, "and when he got on top, he wasted no time."

Once he hits the mat next year at Lehigh University, don't expect him to waste much time adjusting to college wrestling, especially if history is any indication. The son of an All-American wrestler at Springfield College, Sean Sr., Bilodeau got his start against his father, who won't wrestle him anymore. ("I don't want to get hurt," Sean Sr. said.)

Bilodeau, now 5 feet 9 inches, started training at Harvard's gym shortly thereafter, and through Weiss -- who said Bilodeau is "like a son" to him -- he has met a slew of talented coaches who have molded him into a champion at every age level and weight class he has passed through.

Among his influences, in addition to Weiss, have been Brooks coach Alex Konovalchik, Team Massachusetts coach Dave Leonardis, former Harvard assistants Jamill Kelly and Jesse Jantzen, and 2008 Olympic trainee Jared Frayer (another former Harvard coach). Bilodeau also made three summer trips to Belarus to train with Granit Taropin, who coached perhaps the best wrestler ever, Russian Sergei Beloglazov.

"I just try to take the top thing every one of these guys does, and combine it," said Bilodeau, who has learned what he called "crazy moves" from many of them. "It's a mixture of a bunch of styles. It's my own style, I guess."

It's that unorthodox, opportunistic (as his coaches say) style combined with an advanced sense for the sport that set him apart in Fargo. He had finished second in the younger Cadet division there two years ago, but this summer, he wasn't wrestling on a rigid schedule and wasn't even sure he was going to go until Leonardis convinced him a week prior.

"I think that helped him," said Frayer, who came up to watch from his training facility in Colorado Springs. "He may have wrestled in competitions in the past where he was kind of burned out a little bit. . . . He was fresh, and mentally, he was ready for his last high school tournament.

"I knew he was going to win it," Frayer added, "and I couldn't miss him winning it."

Most of the country wasn't so confident, seeing as how only one Massachusetts wrestler had ever won a junior title there -- Wellesley's Rollie Peterkin, another friend and Bilodeau influence, in 2005.

"I'm happy for myself for winning it, but I'm also happy for what it can do for Massachusetts wrestling," Bilodeau said. "Now that I've won it, people will look at it and be like, 'Hey, I can do this. If a Massachusetts kid can win it, I can win it.' "

Just add it to his quickly growing legend, which already included four New England prep school titles, one national prep title, and a 138-9 overall record in high school. At an awards ceremony this spring, Brooks headmaster Larry Becker relayed the story of when a teacher insisted that Bilodeau demonstrate a move on him, and Bilodeau -- after begging him to reconsider -- inadvertently broke his rib.

"He was on the ground howling for five minutes," Bilodeau said. "I felt so bad."

His story is almost unbelievable in other ways, too -- such as the fact that he builds his body by splitting and hauling wood for his father's landscaping company and climbing through the rope course in his backyard. His coaches often receive Thanksgiving turkeys as gifts from the Bilodeaus.

But later this month, after a training session in Colorado with Frayer, Bilodeau will be the one flying the coop, and Weiss -- who had long hoped to coach him at Harvard -- knows his best wrestling is still ahead, at Lehigh. Bilodeau wants to win an NCAA individual title, and perhaps follow Frayer's footsteps as an aspiring Olympian afterward.

"Spike can do anything he wants to do. He's got all the tools. He's got the passion to do it," Weiss said. "Nothing he's going to do is going to surprise me."

Mike Lipka can be reached at mlipka@globe.com.