Conant's Ben Sawyer tosses the javelin during Sunday's second and final day of the 68th NH Decathlon at Nashua South. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – It wasn’t a threepeat, but we’ll call it a triple play.

Recent Conant High School graduate Ben Sawyer couldn’t wait to come back to Nashua High School South. He had won the New Hampshire Decathlon as a freshman and again as a sophomore, but a hamstring injury kept him from winning three straight.

But he’ll take being a three-time champion of the oldest high school decathlon in the country, which he became on Sunday, totaling 6067 points, pulling away from Pelham’s Colby Crear (5873) while Nashua North’s Gavin Suchecki took third at 5461.

“It’s great, I love the Decathlon, it’s definitely may favorite track event all year,” Sawyer said. “It means a lot more than it seems, to prove to myself I can still compete at the level I was at before.”

South’s Preston Bois was the next best local finishing sixth. Phillips Exeter’s Dan Mussulman was fourth at 5,348, while Monadnock’s Gavin Lombara took fifth at 5,324. Merrimack’s Luca Kabel was eighth with 5,016.

For Sawyer, this was a unique path to the title.

“It’s funny,my best events were actually the ones that gave me trouble,” said the now-former Oriole, headed to Keene State in the fall. “That was huge to do well in my non-typical events (shot put, discus, pole vault).

It was ironic, Sawyer said he had actually improved at javelin durng the spring but was angry when his javelin toss of 42.21 meters was only good for fourth. He finished 20th in the 1500 meter run, the final event, but no matter as his time of 5:09.22 allowed him to pick up 536 points.

“After the javelin I was mad; I ran faster than I probably would have if I did well in javelin,” Sawyer said.

On the rest of the day, a key as he said was in some throws and he finished second in discus with a hurl of 37.79 meters. Sawyer third in pole vault at 3.51 was sixth in the 110 hurdles in 16.25 seconds. All in all a good day, because his times and distances were worth valuable points. That’s more important than the place in any event; Sawyer is proof of that as he failed to win a single event all weekend but took the biggest prize.

Nashua South’s Preston Bois clears the bar in winning the ;pole vault on Sunday in the 68th NH Decathlon at South. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

With Sawyer now moving on, there could be an interesting all-city battle next year between Suchecki and Bois.

Suchecki was eighth in the 110 hurdles (16.97), 34th in the discus (23.73), ninth in the pole vault (3.04), ninth in the javelin (39.75 meters), and fifth in the 1500 meters (4:39.86, 681 points).

Bois, who won the pole vault to loud applause , was fourth in the hurdles (15.84), 15th in the discus (27.06), 34th in the 1500 (5:27.13), and 23rd in the javelin (34.69).

Clearly both can see where they need to improve.

“The second day was when I had my main events, hurdles and pole vault,” Bois said. “My throws were kind of average … I’ll be back next year and hopefully win it all.”

Which is exactly what Suchecki wrote in his college recruiting profile. With Sawyer releasing his grip on the event, the door is open.