Wauconda pins 1st Prairie loss on Grant
They say all good things must come to an end, and that was the case for the Grant wrestling team's North Suburban Conference Prairie Division winning streak Friday night at Wauconda.
Dating back to the 2000-01 season, Grant had never lost a Prairie Division dual meet as they took a 58-dual meet winning streak into the showdown against Wauconda in a battle of the Bulldogs.
But after winning 10 divisional crowns in a row, Grant (11-7, 3-1) fell just short of No. 59 straight victory as Wauconda (12-4, 4-0) won the final five matches of the meet to pull out a 28-27 victory. The contest was actually decided on the third criteria after a long discussion between the referee and officials.
The meet started at 215 pounds, and Grant built what looked like a good-enough-to-win 27-9 lead on 140-pounder Devin Monroy's 10-6 decision over Bruce Pearl with only five bouts remaining.
But then came Wauconda's late comeback. A pin by 145-pound senior Nick Cordova started to swing the momentum to the host's direction while putting added pressure on the visiting Bulldogs.
At 152 pounds, Tim Alvarado followed with a 4-2 decision over Grant's Charles Wiliams before Wauconda 160-pounder Pete Kootstra added a 3-2 decision over Tony Cashmore to cut the gap to 27-21 with two matches left.
Next came another defensive struggle to the end, with Wauconda 171-pounder Nate Magiera holding off Mikus Balams 3-2 to cut the lead to 27-24 and set the stage for a winner-take-all bout between Grant sophomore Jared Lalanda and Wauconda junior Jake Sherman at 189.
Lalanda had pinned Sherman in the first period just before Christmas at the Glenbrook South tournament. But Sherman built an early 4-0 lead, led 4-1 after two periods, and went on to post a 7-3 decision to make the team score 27-27. But with no misconduct points or penalty points, the third criteria went to individual wins in the match.
Wauconda had won 8 bouts to Grant's 6, and that carried the host Bulldogs to the 28-27 victory and end Grant's extended winning streak.
“I kind of decided before the match that I was going to give it all I had and not get winded,” said Sherman. “Coach Nance said he's been here for 27 years and he's never beaten them, so it was amazing — and we knew we had a shot this year.”
Nance and company pulled off the win, but they will still have to defeat Vernon Hills next week and Round Lake the following week if they want to win the Prairie Division outright with a 6-0 record.
“It's certainly one of the sweetest and most significant dual meet wins this program has ever had in 30 years and we can say that with all due respect to Grant's program that expects to win every time they wrestle,” said Nance. “We knew what happened to Jake (at Glenbrook South) and tonight we finally saw the Jake Sherman we knew was there.”
“He (Sherman) put the hammer down and never let that kid breathe,” added Nance. “It took 13 guys to win this meet, though, and I'm very proud of them.”
A 7-1 decision by Wauconda 215-pounder Brian Kent (15-1) opened the meet before Grant 285-pounder Dan Haeffale posted a 2-1 decision over Shawn Sundquist.
Wauconda 103-pounder Devin Tortorice (20-3) followed with a 5-0 decision before Grant built an 18-6 lead on a pin by Ben Soumar at 112, a 5-4 decision by Paul Stressler over Tyler Holt at 119, and a forfeit win by Brett Conway at 125.
Wauconda's Damien Nelson won what proved to be a huge 7-6 decision at 130 before Grant 135-pounder Nick Fanella pinned his opponent in 1:45.
Grant coach Ryan Geist was disapointed, but definitely not devasted by the loss of his young and inexperienced team, which is missing key 152-pound senior Jose Jimenez due to injury. But neither did Geist make excuses for his squad.
“The bottom line was we made a big deal out of this meet this week, and last week and I think our kids felt the pressure and they buckled,” Geist said. “We wrestled not to lose and I felt Wauconda was wrestling to win, and we were too cautious trying not to lose it.”
“Tom Nance does a great job coaching these guys and I hope they go on to win the division,” added Geist. “We had so many matches that we could have won and our guys kind of froze.”