Prospect’s big boys finish off Wheeling
Coach Tom Whalen likes what he has at the upper weights, and Friday two of his bigger wrestlers illustrated why as Prospect earned a victory over a Mid-Suburban East rival.
Joe Zalewski all but ended the hopes of Wheeling with an impressive major decision at 182, and minutes later, senior Max Triveline put the icing on the cake with a fall at 2:57 to fuel the Knights’ 46-26 victory in Mt. Prospect.
“We really feel we have a solid group of guys at the top of our lineup,” said Whalen, “but tonight we also got some help from a few of our guys at the lower end to get a good win against (Wheelinc coach Neal Weiner’s) team, which looked to have a few guys a little under the weather.”
“I never make make excuses for our guys, and although we had a couple of guys (battling illness), it’s clear to me that Prospect is a very good team that is in great shape and is very well coached,” said Weiner, whose team today hosts the No. 1 team in the state, Sandburg, among others, at the 27th annual Wildcat Invite.
The Knights jumped out to a quick lead when Sam Lobono opened the night with a pin over Jacob Del Toro at 3:10 before receiving a dramatic 3-2 win in OT from Joe Benway over David Rodriguez at 113 pounds.
But the visitors fired back when two varsity rookies, David Gonzales (120) and Mike Alcazar (126), earned 11 points for their mates with a fall, and a technical fall from the sophomore Alcazar at 4:46 to give the ’Cats their only lead of the night at 11-9.
“Those two have been really wrestling well in their first year for us,” said Weiner of Gonzales, now an 8-2 freshman, and sophomore Alcaraz, who recorded a takedown off the opening whistle as he built an 8-0 lead after two minutes en route to a 16-0 lead midway through the third period.
Senior Joe Abu-Baker, who finds himself in the middle of a star-studded field at 132 today when the 52nd Dick Mudge tournament commences at Prospect, put his club up for good with a pin just 50 seconds into his bout with Paul Dennis. After Harry Hamilton’s impressive major at 138 and back-to-back forfeits at 145 and 152, the hosts suddenly found themselves leading 31-17.
Joe had a nice tune-up match for himself as he gets ready for maybe one of the toughest weight classes at our tournament, but Harry was especially strong tonight,” said Whalen.
Leo Giordano’s pin at 2:22, and a gritty six-minute performance got Cats captain Ed Scanlon, under the weather himself, past Mike Etchingham. But that’s as close as Wheeling got, as when Zalewski produced a 10-4 win to help set up Triveline’s fall.
“(Triveline) has always been a great worker in the room, but it hasn’t always translated over into his matches,” said Whalen, “but he still was able to win 24, even though he missed 3 weeks of the season.
“This season it’s all come together for him, and we’re expecting a lot from him, as well as our other big guys.”
“It was a tough night for us,” said Weiner, “but we’ve got to regroup in order to get ready for our tournament — it’s that simple.”