Elk Grove savors victory over Guerin
That wrestling limbo pole couldn’t have gotten much lower for Elk Grove two years ago, when the Grens struggled to a 2-19 season under coach Craig Johnson in his first season.
But the bar has been set much higher for the Grens, and Wednesday night before an appreciative senior night crowd, the hosts shined brightly under its new set of spotlights by crushing visiting Guerin Prep 78-0 to wrap up their regular season with a 14-10 record.
And keep alive hopes for bigger and better things from here on out.
“We finished dead last in every tournament that season, couldn’t field a full lineup, and just had a terrible time of things in that first season of mine,” said Johnson. “But things have really turned around for us, and although all of the guys know there’s so much work ahead of them in order to go to that next level, we’ve won our first tournament in 18 years (here) and finished second in two others, and the team is beginning to believe in themselves, which is a great step in the growth of this program.”
The Grens, who had just three seniors in the varsity lineup Wednesday night, started fast and never took their foot off the pedal over the Class 2A Gators, who will compete in the Fenton regional next Saturday in Bensenville.
The short-handed visitors found themselves trailing 36-0 after giving away 4 matches by forfeit, and by fall at 119 and 125 to Alex Mertes (26-6) and Joe Hauser (20-11) before co-captain Tony Szplit earned another 6 points for his mates with a forfeit at 140 pounds.
“I am one of, if not the only guy still around from that team two years ago that had just six guys in our varsity lineup, and that usually led to some really ugly results for most of the year,” said the senior. “Things are different around here now, and this is still a very young team, and it’s great to be a part of it.”
After the Szplit forfeit pushed the Grens’ lead to 42-0, the fans were treated to a frenzy of pins, the first coming from co-captain Nick Clausen, who registered his pin of Jake Danner at just 1:14. Tom Jansen (20-11) nearly bested that when he finished off Kevin Doyle at 1:46.
Jon Ebert (20-11) used a second-period explosion which featured a pair of near-falls to build an 11-1 cushion over Jerrel Danner before putting away his opponent with a technical fall at 5:15.
Andrew Noonan escaped with a 4-3 decision at 171 against Alex Acosta to set up a rematch between the Grens’ Greg Johnsen (19-10) and a talented 189-pounder from Guerin, Alex Sullivan, who earlier in the season defeated the Elk Grove junior.
A first-period wrestled all over the circle with plenty of hand-fighting ended scoreless after two minutes, and Johnsen led 2-1 heading into the third period. That’s where Johnsen opened up on Sullivan with a 5-point burst to go up 7-3, then 9-3 at 5½ minutes before closing his opponent out with a 12-3 major decision.
“That was a big win for Greg, and a well-wrestled match by him,” said Johnson.
Dan Egan pinned David Connelly at 3:03 at 215 pounds before Kohje Hurjbe treated the home crowd to a fanstastic finale when he came back from a 6-2 deficit to pin Gators heavyweight Luke Kreiman at 3:53.
“We’ve been on the end of a lot of nights like one during the past two seasons, but this team is made up of a lot of juniors who came in as freshmen, and were told by the coaching staff that if we stayed together, and worked really hard, that good things would begin to happen for us,” said Johnsen, who won 17 bouts last year. “We traveled down to Florida over Christmas break, and won the tournament there when Tony pinned his guy in the final match to beat a state ranked team from (there), and coach has a picture of all of us on the beach holding that trophy. I don’t think any of us will ever forget that.”