Tigers' Savenok gains confidence
Wheaton Warrenville South wrestling coach Ryan Ferguson has always had confidence in Tigers senior Tim Savenok, and now Savenok has confidence in himself.
"It's all mental out there," Savenok said. "I used to be afraid to take shots. I was afraid to actually wrestle. Now that I've been doing year-long wrestling, I've gotten more used to it and I'm making better decisions."
Those better decisions have Savenok sitting on a 25-5 record at 152 pounds, with three of those wins coming on Saturday in a quad at Fenton.
After dropping a close dual to Naperville North on Friday night, the Tigers (12-6) bounced back with three wins in Bensenville, dominating Glenbard West and Rockford Guilford before ending the day with a 33-19 win over the host Bison.
"I was happy for a lot of the guys today that got wins, because they're not necessarily our consistent winners," Ferguson said. "In a sport like this, that's so tough, it's good to see them get a little confidence."
The Tigers got three wins on the day from Savenok, Eric Schaefer (103 pounds), Tyler Kalb (119), Spartacus Chino (135), Nick Marlin (160), Jim Franke (171) and Mike Olp (189).
Chino improved to 25-3 on the year with a trio of technical falls, and the work he's done in the practice room against Savenok has helped them both.
"We're practice partners, and last year I didn't get pushed like he's pushing me," Chino said of Savenok. "He's pushing me a lot, and it's been back and forth between us."
The Tigers earned an 8-6 edge in matches won over Fenton, including a 5-1 edge in bonus-point matches. Kalb won a 6-4 overtime decision at 119, and Fenton heavyweight Francisco Ochoa won 2-1 in overtime against the Tigers' Pat O'Shea.
Fenton (11-3) went 2-1 on the day, winning big over Guilford and beating Glenbard West 32-26 thanks to consecutive wins by Joe Butz (145) and Chris Butz (152) to end the dual.
"The Butz brothers came through," said Fenton coach Brian Hastings. "The kids wrestled hard and some of our guys stepped up."
Fenton wrestled without standout Josh Castellano, who sat nursing a minor injury and will return to action this week.
Wrestlers going 3-0 on the day for Fenton were Ochoa, Ryan Joy (125), Carlos Gomez (140), and Chris Butz (145/152).
Another one of Fenton's bright spots on the day was freshman Al Geneva (130).
"He went 2-1 today and he wrestled tough," Hastings said. "And we had some other freshmen in the lineup that wrestled hard."
Glenbard West topped Guilford 46-26 to end the day, and three-match winners for the Hilltoppers included Sam Littlehale (112), Mike Letmanski (125) and Ethan Knowlton (130).