Grant powers to eighth straight Erb title
The 44th annual Rus Erb Wrestling Invitational turned out to be another showcase for powerful Grant Saturday afternoon at Glenbrook South.
The Bulldogs trailed Wheeling and Batavia headed into the second and final day of competition, but they rallied and rolled to their eighth straight Erb championship with 246.5 points.
The Bulldogs featured five individual champions in the 16-team meet.
Wheeling took second place with 208 points, followed by Batavia (168) in third, Carmel (130) fourth, and Stevenson (122.5) fifth.
After missing the early part of the 2007-08 season because of a training violation, Grant sophomore Lee Munster picked up where he left off last season by being named the outstanding wrestler of the tournament.
Munster (3-0) was the 119-pound state champion in 2006-07 as a freshman, and he went 3-0 this weekend with 3 pins to capture the 140-pound title with a pin in 3:46 over Wheeling's David Aranda.
"I've been working on conditioning a lot while I was out and over the summer I started working on my strength a lot after nationals at Fargo," Munster said. "The team is doing pretty good this year and after losing a lot of seniors we have some JV guys who are stepping up well so far."
Izzy Montemayor (15-2), a 2007 state qualifier, was another individual champion for the Bulldogs with an 18-8 major decision over Stevenson's David Lamberti at 125.
"I thought I did really well and I wrestled (Lamberti) before so I knew what he was going to do," Montemayor said. "I think we're a solid team and everybody placed in the top six except for two weights today."
Grant sophomore Jason Montemayor posted a 4-1 decision over Wheeling's Mike Smith for the 119-pound crown, while 130-pound teammate Shelby Temple (15-2) also took home first place.
Dave Monroy was the Bulldogs' other champion with a 3-1 overtime decision at 215.
"Day one ended on kind of a sour note losing some matches we could have won, but today we wrestled smarter," said Grant coach Ryan Geist. "We're very excited about having five champions here especially at 215, because we haven't had a big guy win this tournament in a long time."
Wheeling senior Max Nowry (17-0) continued to shine by winning the 103-pound title. Freshman teammate Luke Smith (18-2) captured the 112-pound title with a 9-4 overtime victory over Marian Catholic's Damonte Riley.
"He (Nowry) is currently ranked No. 1 in the state and No. 1 in the nation and today he just controlled the matches even though he was very conservative," said Wheeling coach Neal Weiner. "Luke (Smith) is just really fun to watch and for a freshman he wrestles like a veteran senior."
Stevenson senior Bobby Vagun (10-2) had a tough battle, but he held off Glenbrook North's Brad Nardick 6-3 for the 152-pound championship.
"He (Vagun) was in an extremely tough weight class, he wrestled very well, and he went out there and got it done," said Stevenson coach Shane Cook. "We're a little disappointed in some of our wrestlers who lost some very close matches in the wrestle backs, but this is a very tough tournament."
Buffalo Grove junior Kyle Czarnecki (14-1) took first place at 160 with a forfeit victory over Wheeling's Abel Rangel.
Carmel's Ryan Williams took runner-up honors at 171.
"We could have done better, but we're improving and that is the whole goal of the season," said Carmel coach Joe Scordino. "We have an awful lot of young guys in the lineup and Williams just has to get more bouts under his belt and he will be fine."
Danny Vargas added a second-place finish for Wheeling at 189, as did teammate Joe Kent at 145. Grant's Nick Guenther lost a tough 1-0 decision to Batavia's Rocco Wade in the 135-pound finals.
Third-place winners included Buffalo Grove's Jeff Streu (112), Grant's Tyler Becker (145), Buffalo Grove's Jamie Zabrin (152), Grant's Josh Deluca (171), Stevenson's Stefan Melnyk (215), and Carmel's Steve Lester (285).