Naperville North pins a loss on Metea Valley

The DuPage Valley Conference wrestling dual match was decided by one sudden, not to mention violent, move.

Naperville North 220-pounder Aaron McCarthy caught his Metea Valley counterpart in the opening period Thursday night in Aurora.

Seconds later, the Huskies had an insurmountable 14-point lead with two matches remaining after McCarthy supplied the first-period fall.

"I really didn't see it," McCarthy said after the Huskies won their league opener 44-28. "I tripped him. I got him on his back, and my goal was to pin him."

The teams combined for 72 out of a maximum of 84 points as there were only two simple decisions among the 13 contested matches.

"If you live by fire, you die by fire," Naperville North coach Tom Champion said of the many lopsided matches. "Some of our guys looked for pins a little too much. Metea is very much the same way; they're gunslingers, too."

Naperville North (5-3, 1-0) erased the final Metea Valley lead, 25-24,`when John Simmelink earned a first-period fall at 182 pounds for the Huskies.

"There were a lot of one-sided matches," the Naperville North junior said. "I just tried to work the basics. You have to take it one match at a time. I was able to get it done."

Naperville North opened the night with 12 quick points in the first two matches as Metea Valley had to forfeit the 120-pound weight class after the Huskies' lone returning state qualifier, 113-pounder Lucas Van Poucke, had a fall eight seconds before the first-period buzzer to start the match.

But Metea Valley (2-4, 0-2) responded in kind in the four weight classes between 126 and 145 pounds.

The Mustangs had a 21-point unanswered run as Phillip Sims and Jaycee Randolph had falls at the bookend weights.

Harsh Anchan added a technical fall at 132 pounds in the run, and 138-pounder Bobby Rouse had a decisive 13-3 win.

"I'm OK with it," Metea Valley coach Claudio Torres said of the one-sided nature of many of the matches. "Our whole lineup was bumped up a weight class."

The Huskies' Teddy Deetjan continued the trend with a first-period fall at 152 pounds, and Naperville North junior Gabe Matar gave his team a 24-21 lead with another pin at 160 pounds.

Metea Valley freshman Josh LaBarbera gave the Mustangs their final lead with an 11-1 triumph at 170 pounds.

But Naperville North captured four of the last five matches, with Jake Allgood capping the night with a technical fall at 106 pounds, to account for the final score.

"I didn't want (my kids) wrestling at scratch weight with final exams coming up at the end of the semester," Torres said of his strategy.