The Greater Miami Conference wrestling tournament moved to Lakota East High School this year, but the trophy stayed in Mason.

Senior 182-pounder Thomas Danis and junior Caleb Dimerling (132) won championships, and the Comets placed another eight wrestlers on the podium on the way to winning their fourth consecutive league title.

“It’s always a goal of ours as a program, but we knew this year we would have our work cut out for us,” Mason’s Craig Murnan said after capturing his fourth consecutive Coach of the Year award.

“We graduated a lot last year, some big kids as far as point-scorers and top-end wrestlers,” Murnan added. “There was a lot of uncertainty coming into the year. We thought we had some good underclassmen, but they hadn’t been proven or tested at the varsity level.”

Mason scored 177 team points to finish 33 ahead of runner-up Fairfield in the first league tournament that wasn’t held at Oak Hills since the Comets joined the GMC in 2007.

The shorter drive was welcome as this also marks the first year of the team state tournament, where Mason advanced to the regional championship just three days prior to the GMC tournament.

“It’s definitely been a grinder over the last seven days,” said Murnan, whose team was scheduled to face Centerville on Feb. 6 for the right to be one of eight Division I teams that competed for a state title on Saturday.

Top-seeded Danis won his first individual league championship on his last try with a dominating 9-0 major decision of Fairfield’s Michael Plunkett.

“He’s been our anchor all year,” Murnan said of Danis, who is 35-6 this year after missing a trip to state by one match as a junior. “He’s a guy we’ll have to lean on down the stretch.”

Dimerling’s GMC title was his first as well, and he produced it in the same fashion as most his wins – and losses – this season, with a tight 1-0 decision against Lakota East’s Justin Brown, the No. 1 seed.

“To people on the outside, Dimerling was probably a surprise, but to us it wasn’t,” Murnan said, noting the junior’s 20-14 overall record. “He’s been wrestling up at 138, so a lot of those losses are deceiving. He’s been in a lot of really close matches that could have gone either way. He’s had a lot of one- and two-point wins, and a lot of one- and two-point losses.”

Three Comets placed second, including sophomore and defending GMC champion Patrick Kearney, who dropped a close 4-3 decision to Middletown’s Anthony Jagel at 106.

Sophomore Jordan Collins made an impressive run through the 138-pound bracket before falling 13-6 to top-seeded Adam Sams, of Fairfield. And junior Austin Morris dropped a 5-3 decision to Sycamore’s Tinashe Bere in the 220-pound final.

Sophomores Rylan France (120) and Sheldon Sims (160) and senior Bryan Crabtree (126) placed third, while seniors Brian McCrea (152) and August Uecker (195) took fourth.