Senior togetherness benefits Lake Zurich against Mundelein
Lake Zurich's wrestling team was in control from its opening match Friday night, scoring the first 21 points and ending on a high note with three bonus-point victories to top visiting Mundelein 58-13 in the regular-season finale for both teams.
The Bears (18-4-0, 4-3-0) took a bite out of the Mustangs by recording a trio of falls plus a technical fall to make it a special Senior Night for the twelve seniors honored inside Tonelli Gym in North Suburban Conference action.
"It's a great way to go out," said senior Kyle Fleming, who registered Lake Zurich's lone major decision of the dual at 195 pounds and improved his record to 24-4. "Of our four losses, three of them were very close against teams from our conference (Stevenson, Warren and Libertyville). But we were missing a few guys in our lineup for each of those losses. We're finally 100 percent healthy, and I feel if we stay that way, we'll be right there in the mix at the Grant regional in two weeks."
While the Bears' lineup is senior-dominated, the opposite can be said for Roy Seeger's Mundelein team.
"Our starting lineup was made of nearly all freshmen and sophomores - and in some cases, it was a freshmen against a senior," Seeger said. "But there was a lot of fight in my guys, and that's all you're looking for against a very good team such as Lake Zurich."
Despite the upside-down final, the Mustangs still finished the season with a respectable record of 14-9-0 (3-4-0 in the NSC).
Joey Mrazek gave the Bears the lead for good with a hard-fought 1-0 decision over Augustine Cirillo at 138 to open the night before three consecutive forfeits put LZ in front at 21-0.
Mustangs standout sophomore 170-pounder Logan Kvein continued his winning ways by recording a 11-3 major decision, fueled by a strong first two periods in which he opened an 8-2 advantage over Josh Goldberg.
Billy Busse (182), only recently back from injury, struck for the Bears' first pin of the night at 4:59. After Fleming's major, Josh Dyer (220) earned his 20th win of the season with a pin at 3:44.
"Jason (Guaderama) is a freshman going against a senior state qualifier (Dyer), and he fought and scraped and didn't give in despite being pinned," said Seeger.
Mundelein got back into it for a short while as Dane and Reece Durlacher defeated Justin and Jason Woolard at 106 and 113 to make it 43-13. But that was as close as the visitors got.
Nick Swanson (132) joined Dyer in earning his 20th win of the season when he ended the night with a pin 99 seconds into his bout.
"With Dane and Logan sophomores, and Reece a junior, there's a good core of guys we can build our team around next season," said Seeger.
"We've got a really good, and hard-working freshman team, and along with all of the guys from this team, things will really turn around for us a year from now," said Dane Durlacher, who following his t-fall at 2:53 improved to 30-2.
For Lake Zurich coach Dan Strickler, who welcomed several former alumni and their families for this final home dual, the last month of the season couldn't come soon enough.
"We've been waiting to get everyone back," Strickler said. "And now that we finally have them, and if we can remain injury-free from here on out, we'll have a good chance at regionals and later to get a bunch of our guys into sectionals. The we'll see what happens from there."