Lake Zurich meets 2A challenges from Sycamore, BC

There was plenty of driving fun on the other end of the trip for Lake Zurich yesterday as the Bears ventured far to the west to defeat a pair of 2A wrestling powers Saturday afternoon in Sycamore.

After beginning their weekend with an impressive win over Zion-Benton in a North Suburban Conference dual Friday, the Bears stunned the host Spartans 34-27 before rolling over Burlington Central 43-22 with a steady diet of hard-fought close victories led by Matt Mueller.

Burlington Central had entered the day with a 5-0 record.

“It was a really great day for us, and for that matter, two days,” said Lake Zurich coach Dan Strickler, who was especially proud of his team’s effort against a Sycamore club which brought home a third-place team trophy from the 2A state tournament last February.

“We’re finally getting everyone back into our lineup, especially Sean (Lynch) from football, and even though we weren’t at full strength last weekend for the Moore-Prettyman, we still had 5-6 guys still alive on the second day of the tournament,” said Mueller, who went 2-0 and got his second win of the day, a major decision against Central, long after the Bears had put away the Rockets. “(Strickler) is all about putting the team first, and today you saw everyone picking each other up, winning the close matches and getting big wins when we needed them, especially in that first dual with Sycamore.”

Both Mueller and his coach pointed to a key moment early on when Zeke Honeggor caught Sycamore standout Austin Culton is his 152-pound bout, quickly earning a pin to put the Spartans on their heels. That put the Bears in the lead, and they held it unti lthe hosts drew even at 18 to set up an exciting finish.

“Zeke really surprised (Culton) and helped us get going,” said Strickler. “He had a terrific day, and I’d let you talk to him about it, but he had to race off to go to his second interview with the Naval Academy people.”

The Honeggar pin silenced the big crowd on hand, and soon after LZ’s Scott Hoff (160) registered a technical fall at 5:48 and teammate Ty Kapitzky hung on to win a 4-1 decison over Ren Swick.

The Spartans regained their composure, and after a 6-1 win from Tyler Barton at 182, junior Jake Davis pinned Chris Lehtimen at 2:38 at 195.

The match see-sawed back and forth — first in favor of the Bears after a fall from Ethan Honeggar at 103 pounds, then back to the hosts as they drew even at 24, and again at 27 following a 3-OT decision from Colton Burns at 126 against Gresh Henderson.

Brendon Arteaga put LZ ahead for good after a dominant performance at 132. Arteaga methodically built his lead throughout his six-minute bout with Zach Munro before winning 12-0.

Mueller put the icing on the cake with a hard-fought 4-1 decision.

“I felt I could have had a better result on Friday against (Max) Ellis of Zion-Benton, so it was important for me to regroup and come out today and make a better contribution to my team,” said Mueller.

Lynch, a sectional qualifier last year in his rookie season, met two-time state qualifier Steven Lalowski in the opening match of the dual. Lalowski, a senior who was 35-2 last year and is 103-22 in his career, held off Lynch 8-2 to win the first of his two big encounters of the day, the second coming later against Burlington Central’s two-time state qualifier Johnny Major.

“When Sean gets back into wrestling shape, then we’re going to see something special from him, which in turn will help the entire team overall,” said Strickler, whose team meets reigning North Suburban Lake champ Libertyville on Friday.

Major and his Rockets teammates enjoyed a great start against Sycamore, putting up 17 unanswered points against the Spartans. But Sycamore produced a 28-point explosion to take the lead for good in a 43-26 win.

“We could have easily gone somewhere else and gotten two easy victories to put on our overall record, but these are the types of matches and opponents we need to be going against if we expect to get better down the road,” said Burlington Central coach Tony Rigitano. “We had some great matches, with some very good results. But as the guys found out, you cannot give away bonus points, and you’ve got to win the close matches when you go against impressive teams like Lake Zurich and Sycamore.”

Buddy Toth got the Rockets up and running against the Spartans when he needed just under five minutes to record a technical fall over Austin Armstrong to start things at 160. After Omar Awad struck for his second pin of the day and Andrew Yarwood came back from being down to pin Tyler Barton at 182, it looked as though Sycamore could be on its way to a second consecutive defeat on its home mats.

“Too many pins and majors did us in,” said Toth, who won 22 bouts last year for the Rockets. “We’re young in spots, but everyone is working really hard, so I know as the season goes on we’ll all get better and be able to compete at a higher level.”

The Spartans had a little too much firepower at the lower weights for Central. Jon Wright ended Sycamore dominant spurt with a fall at 120, and Brady Weinrich used an escape at five minutes to defeat Colton Burns 1-0 and pull the Rockets within 2 at 28-26.

But the Spartans went on to win the final 4 bouts and pull away, with Lalowski defeating Major 4-0 in the marquee match of the dual.

“Johnny is a terrific wrestler, who has a great work ethic, and today he had two great opponents,” said Rigitano. “If he could have gotten out, things might have been different with Lalowski. But he’ll go to work, and will be just fine.”

Against Lake Zurich, the Rockets, who opened their first week of the season with victories over Winnebago, Marengo, Kaneland, Freeport, and 3A Wheaton Warrenville South, received victories from heavyweight Jake Souza and Andrew Brooks (113) in addition to Toth, Awad and Major.

The Rockets have the week ahead to prepare for their annual visit to the Sterling Invite next weekend before the two-day Harvard tournament gets under way Dec. 16.