St. Charles East drops Glenbard North
The St. Charles East wrestling team has high aspirations this winter.
And on Friday night, the Saints certainly showed why.
Notching six pins during the DuKane Conference opening meet for both squads, St. Charles East picked up a 39-31 win over Glenbard North in Carol Stream.
The victory was the program's first dual meet win over the Panthers since 2000.
"They have been in our way for a long time in regionals," said St. Charles East coach Jason Potter, whose team improved to 4-1 in dual meets despite still missing two returning starters. "For local programs I've always looked at them as a rival even back to my own (wrestling) days. As much as they are a rival and you want to beat them, as a program we also want to take a big step.
"It's a new conference, it's a new day. I think we have a special group and we know they will be in our way at the end of the year; they got us in the regional last year. I expect them to get better and I expect our guys to get better."
With two of the top-ranked teams in the area squaring off, an important match proved to be at 170 pounds, where Carter Maggio secured a pin. Maggio said he has lost to his opponent, Anthony Pennington, three times in the previous two years.
"I had never beaten him," Maggio said. "I actually lost my contact halfway through the match. But I heard my coach yelling and I knew that I had to finish it. I put it all out there at that point."
The visitors at one point had three pins in a row, from Mark Guerrero (120 pounds), Ben Anderson (126) and Peyton Schroeder (132). Also contributing falls were Tommy Schroeder at 160 and Justin Hull at 285. Hull is back this season after finishing third in the state a year ago.
Justin Benjamin won 10-5 at 138.
"This is huge," Hull said. "We had to have a lot of guys come through and wrestle their best matches and they all came through. We had a lot of big pins. It was a great showing.
"This is the best team we've had in years. In past years we either had strong lower weights or strong middle weights or strong upper weights, but this year we have strengths all across the board."
The Panthers, who did get penalized 4 points for misconduct, racked up three pins of their own from Patrick Curran (113 pounds), George Marre (152) and recent Iowa-commit Abe Assad (195). Ronan Schuelke added a 10-2 decision at 106, Evan Williams emerged with an 8-4 win at 145 and Mershad Bashang had an 11-1 victory at 220. Alex Erickson also won via forfeit at 182.
Glenbard North was coming off a first-place finish at the Conant Invite last weekend.