Wrestling: Cary-Grove battles past Dundee-Crown

Any wrestler going up against Cary-Grove senior Michael Gomez in the 285-pound heavyweight division might find themselves to be in the wrong place at the wrong time this season.

With the second-place place finish in the Class 7A state football championship still fresh in his mind, Gomez certainly has committed his frustrations onto the mat, and when momentum looked to be with the Dundee-Crown wrestlers early in a Fox Valley Conference Valley Division meet in Carpentersville, the football star shifted matters in a big way.

Gomez pinned D-C's Isiah Ziegler at the 3:00 mark and coupled with Dale Charlier's victory at 126 and a string of 5-straight wins, the momentum shifted into a 39-30 win for the Trojans Thursday.

Even if Gomez is shaking off the rust, improving to 5-1 overall individually, just his presence and ability is providing a spark for the Trojans. After he turned Ziegler, Gomez used coach Ryan Ludwig's teaching to go right at Ziegler's back en route to the pin.

"I don't know what would have happened if we won (in football) but if we won I wouldn't have the determination I have right now because I'm so sick of losing," Gomez said. "I knew that we just lost two important matches so I needed to kind of get the momentum turned around."

Charlier and the Cullens took it from there. Cary-Grove totaled 5 pins, sweeping classes 126 through 152 as 3-time state placewinner Michael Cullen (132), and brothers Sean Cullen (138) and John Cullen (145) secured wins. John was the only of the three to pin as it took away a little bit from some great individual performances by D-C's Chase Rapp (182), Christian Brunner (195) and Quinton Willingham (120).

"We ran into three Cullens, that's what happened," Chargers' coach Matt Wahl said. "They're outstanding wrestlers. Gomez, he looks really strong this year. Where they're good they're really good."

Charlier, who wrestled at 126 for the first time, has improved his neutral wrestling and really wanted a higher score than his 6-2 win over Adam Gutierrez, but recognized the momentum swing.

"I saw Gomez more of a momentum swing," Charlier said. "He had a big match and definitely got the crowd going."

Michael Cullen wants to "try to dominate everybody," and he did with a 7-0 win over Javon Mayfield.

"I'd like to win by a larger margin. I just don't want to just win, I want to dominate," Michael Cullen said.

And to Ludwig, he was satisfied from top to bottom, including the heart of the lineup with the Cullens, Charlier and Grant Glueck (152).

"Just proud of our kids working hard, still got a lot of kids from football still getting back into wrestling shape and they're doing an outstanding job," he said. "But that work ethic carrying over from our football program to our wrestling program is what Cary-Grove is about."

All wasn't for naught with the Chargers as Rapp got D-C on the board with his 7-4 win over Eric Lind and at the time state runner-up Brunner wrestled, D-C trailed 6-3 with a Christian Rodriguez pin at 220 to follow.

"They told me I needed a pin because we gave up six in the beginning so that's what I went out there trying to do," Brunner said.

"I thought we had the momentum going, but it just didn't work out our way tonight" Wahl said. "They're not going our way so far, but we have to fight through it. Hopefully, at the end of the year we'll be higher up than them at the conference tournament."