The George Bossi Lowell Holiday Wrestling tournament is the place to be if you want to get a sense of where your program is.

For Boston Latin, it showed they are on the right path.

Making the trip to Lowell for the first time, the Wolfpack turned in a creditable performance, finishing 25th out of 93 teams. Two of their wrestlers, Alexander Greene Barrios and Eric Power, wound up placing seventh. For longtime head coach Jeff Gibbons, it was well worth the two days at the Tsongas Center.

“We’ve never been there before, so I knew the kids were excited about the opportunity to compete,” Gibbons said. “I think this is a special group of kids, they’ve worked very hard and the calendar worked well. We were able to bookend the vacation with a pair of tournaments.”

Barrios lost a 3-2 decision to second-seeded Nate Pass of Bedford (N.H.) in the opening round of the 132-pound class. He then proceeded to win seven matches in the consolation bracket, including a pin of Kyle Lajoie of Milford (N.H.) to earn seventh. Power won six matches in the 190-pound weight class, the last triumph by pin, to earn his spot among the elite in New England.

“Both of them wrestled extremely well,” said Gibbons, whose team is off to an 8-1 start in dual meets. “Alex lost a close match and then won out, which was really impressive. That was part of the highlight speech, pointing out what he was able to do.”

A week later, Barrios and Power went on to win individual titles at the Dan Balboni Tournament in Framingham, helping Boston Latin turn in a solid second-place finish behind Merrimack Valley Conference power Methuen. Barrios won the 132-pound title with a 15-7 win over Dan Sullivan of Framingham, while Power pinned Connor Cox of Nashoba in 2:41 to claim the 190-pound crowd.

The Wolfpack finished with six wrestlers placing in the top six, the others being Quinn Bowles (third at 215), Graeme Dierks (fourth at 157), James Snape (fifth at 113) and Kevin McClerkin (fifth at 165). Others who competed there included Maximo Greene Barrios (106), Jonah Roy (120), Ronan Miller (126), Henry Seo (144), David Snape (150), Amir Oscar Ali (175) and Ethan Sardina (285).

“We were really happy with the performance, it was the highest we ever finished there,” Gibbons said. “We came in fifth last year and we only graduated a few so I expected we could do well.”

Boston Latin has come a long way since the early days when Gibbons jokingly referred to his team as the Bad News Bears with one simple goal – find a way to fill out every weight class. Unlike many of the upper echelon wrestling schools, Gibbons doesn’t have the advantage of a built-in community feeder program.

Fortunately for the Wolfpack, there is a solid alternative with Parkway Wrestling based in West Roxbury. The program, under the leadership of Bobby Bligh, has served Boston Latin well as four of the current wrestlers (Barrios, Power, Miller and Seo) got their starters there,

“It’s a great program, I’ve been able to met many parents there. My four kids (Henry, Lincoln, Fiona and Troy) are wrestling there now,” Gibbons said. “Bobby Bligh has done a great job with the program. If I can get 1-2 kids every year from there to go along with three or four ninth graders (Gibbons teaches at the school), that’s a positive thing for our program.”

New England rankings

One of the premier wrestling site for New England rankings is the Schwartz Report. It was started by Max Schwartz, who wrestled at Norwalk High School and has put in countless hours to provide well thought out and comprehensive individual and team rankings.

The latest report unveiled his top 25 dual meet teams of which eight resided from the Bay State heading into the New Year: Central Catholic (4), Shawsheen (5), St. John’s Prep (6), Haverhill (9), Milford (10), Methuen (12), Andover (16) and Chelmsford (20), which will certainly move up after knocking off Central Catholic last week.

As for individual wrestlers, eight locals are ranked No. 1 in their weight class, led by the Tildsley brothers of Shawsheen, Sidney (No. 1 at 138 pounds) and James (No. 1 at 144). The other six are Peter Rincan of Billerica (120), Jonah Paulino of Monty Tech (132), Brent Nicolosi of Haverhill (165), Nate Blanchette of Central Catholic (175), Mason Pellegri of Milton (215) and Thomas Brown of Chelmsford (285).

Coach Jeff Gibbons gives instructions Thursday at Boston Latin’s wrestling practice. (Staff Photo/Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)