Cats deliver special effort on alumni night
It was another successful outing for the Libertyville wrestling team Friday night as the Wildcats performed in front of a special crowd of spectators.
The program's second alumni meet saw the host Wildcats post a 35-23 North Suburban Conference victory over Warren in a Lake Division dual meet.
Libertyville (10-1, 5-0) took an early 3-0 lead behind 130-pounder Sam Shay's 9-4 decision before teammate Everett Indart posted a 16-3 major decision at 135 for a 7-0 advantage.
Senior Trey Ayala appeared to be headed for a victory at 140 with a comfortable lead, but Ayala illegally slammed Warren's Tom Bixler five seconds into the second period, resulting in Ayala being disqualified and the Blue Devils being awarded 6 team points.
"We actually did really well early, but that slam was a turnover of at least 10 points against us and the score started to get close," said Libertyville coach Dale Eggert. "(Matt) Bystol had a great match at 103 and our alumni voted him the most valuable wrestler because he just went after that guy."
Decisions by Libertyville teammates Eric Klein (145) and Joey Callen (152) boosted the lead to 13-6 before Warren (8-2, 2-2) cut the gap to 13-9 when 160-pounder Bryce Howard defeated Josh Ronne 4-1.
The Wildcats went ahead 17-9 on 171-pounder Logan Miller's 12-3 major decision, but Warren junior Tyreese Woodard pinned his opponent in 3:35 to make the score 17-15.
"Woodard is getting better and better, he has a lot of physical talent, and he just needs more mat time," said Warren coach Mark Tiffany. "We're young and we didn't have all of our guys in there, but they're tough and we wrestled hard tonight."
The Wildcats began to pull away with a pin in 2:29 by 215-pounder Jake Hogan and a 7-1 decision by 285-pounder Tom Nield.
Then Bystol posted a 16-8 major decision over Robby Schulteis at 103 before teammate Louis Mazzetta added a 10-0 major decision at 112 for a 35-15 lead.
Warren 119-pounder Connor Drew improved to 17-2 on the season with a 22-6 technical fall in the final seconds of his match against Shane Michelsen.
Warren's Leon Megerdichian pulled out a 10-6 decision over Kyle Manolivic to close out the meet in one of the wildest matches of the night. Trailing the whole way, Manolovic nearly pinned Megerdichian in the final 30 seconds only to have Megerdichian record a near pin of his own in the closing seconds to seal the hard-fought decision.
Among the distinguished Libertyville alumni in attendance were 1956 team members Dick Fischer and Ron Quentin plus Dave Eggert (1972), Margaret LeGates (1994), Dan Cysewski (1998), Mandy Thompson (1998), and Jeff Keske (2005).