Sweep day for St. Charles North
St. Charles North's wrestling team was not too pleased with its opening match of the Huntley Invitational.
The North Stars did manage a 26-25 victory over host Huntley, but it was way too close for comfort.
"Not so much the Huntley match," St. Charles North's Eric Justice said of his team's success on Saturday. "It's the little things that count. We have potential, but some of our guys need to be a little bit more consistent."
The North Stars rebounded from a shaky opening against Huntley to defeat Chicago Juarez 61-9 and Johnsburg 46-24 to complete the sweep of the day. Roy Rodriguez (112), Dave Trizzino (140), Justice (145) and KC Roe all notched clean sweeps for the North Stars.
"We had some good matches today," North Stars coach Scott Trizzino said. "Eric wrestled well both times. It's good to come up and win three matches. (The Huntley Invite) is a good place for us to be. The programs wrestling are our caliber and we got a lot of guys some matches today."
Huntley was also pleased with the level of competition at its Invite. After falling to the North Stars, the Red Raiders rebounded to defeat St. Edward 59-12 and Juarez 54-12.
Huntley scored 14 combined pins against Juarez (8) and St. Edward (6). It closed the day out winning 10 of 12 matches wrestled against Juarez. The teams both had forfeits at 103 and 152.
"We want our kids to see as many different teams as possible," Huntley coach Kurt Rohlwing said. "Coty Claudio wrestled well. He's really coming into his own this year."
Claudio went 3-0 Saturday defeating St. Charles North's Dan Dunklau 12-1 at 119, and picking up a forfeit against St. Edward and 10-4 decision over Juarez's Jose Galarza at 125.
"I worked well on my feet and kept moving," Claudio said. "It was nice that after we lost our first match, we won our next two."
Huntley also got 3 victories from Joel Mayhew (130), Brock Larkin (135), Jordan Bakley 160) and Jake Kearns (215). Tony Benning got a 12-6 decision over North's Brian Landerville at 215 and pinned Juarez's Ed Nunez in 28 seconds at 189.
Short on numbers, St. Edward recorded some solid individual performances on Saturday. The Green Wave fell to Juarez 52-30 and Johnsburg 75-4.
"Will Lytle is having a pretty good start," St. Edward coach Shane Kottkamp said. "At heavyweight, Shane Finnane won 2 out of 3 matches. As a first-year heavyweight, he's doing pretty good."
Lytle (145) defeated Juarez's James Hawkins 8-0, scored a 14-0 major decision over Johnsburg's Joe Stelzer and pinned Huntley's Anthony Godfrey in 3:33.
Finnane pinned Red Raider heavyweight Mike Zermeno in 3:45 and scored a 11-5 victory over Juarez's Cesar Canchola, but fell 6-2 to Johnsburg's Tyler Brady after being pinned in 3:48.