Neuqua's in title hunt
Neuqua Valley, Montini, Wheaton North and eight other Daily Herald teams took the annual weekend trip to the biggest meat-grinder in Illinois wrestling this side of the state tournament, in the 32-team Dvorak Tournament at Machesney Park-Harlem.
Neuqua Valley sits in second place heading into today's action, trailing tournament leader Iowa City West by 5 team points, with Montini trailing the Wildcats by only one-half point.
The Wildcats placed sixth at last year's Dvorak.
"Everyone worked hard, and we pushed each other because we want to do better than last year," said Wildcats senior Jim Duffy, who beat Libertyville's Joey Callen by 5-0 decision to reach today's semifinals at 152 pounds.
Matt Walters (135), Brian Epp (135), Nick Proctor (145), and Chris Spangler (171) will all join Duffy in today's semi-final round, but nobody from Neuqua was overlooking contributions like the one Jackson Robinson also provided.
The Wildcats 103-pounder was seeded 22nd in the tournament, but beat Carl Sandburg's Nick Fishback to become the lowest seed in the tournament to reach the quarterfinal round.
"He was down in the third period, but he hung tough and got a pin," said Wildcats coach Mick Ruettiger. "Jackson does not give up."
Montini had nine wrestlers reach the quarterfinals and four get through to the semifinal round in Sam Brody (103), Colton Rasche (112), Dane Grimes (189) and heavyweight Garrett Goebel.
Top-seeded Goebel only wrestled for 38 seconds through two matches on Friday, pinning Mt. Carmel's Curtis Vacendak in 25 seconds, and then needing only 13 seconds to dispatch Lockport's Michael Tetlow.
"We had a few close ones that went our way in the quarterfinals and a few that didn't," said Montini coach Mike Bukovsky. "But that's the way this tournament is. We just want to compete at every weight class, and I'm happy with the way the kids wrestled."
Wheaton North's Adrian Laskero (112), Nate Fitzenreider (119), and Eric Terrazas (140) all won their quarterfinal matches, with Laskero knocking off a pair of higher seeds in Mahomet-Seymour's Branden Harvey and Yorkville's Jed Lightfoot, who Laskero beat 2-0 in his quarterfinal match.
"They're both ranked, so I just wanted to make sure they were close matches," Laskero said. "And we did pretty good as a team today."
Like Montini and Neuqua Valley, the Falcons went hard in pursuit of bonus points during Friday's opening round of wrestling, and finished the day in seventh place.
"We had a lot of pins in that first round, and that's where we racked up some points," said Falcons coach Steve Holland.
Waubonsie Valley's Kyle Rasmussen has somehow flown under the rankings radar this season, but after the seventh seed at 135 improved to 21-2 with a 6-0 quarterfinal decision win over second-seeded Tyler Carew of Iowa City, he is officially no longer an unknown quantity.
"I just went in really positive," Rasmussen said. "I knew (Carew) was a tough kid, a state qualifier in Iowa, but I just worked my game."
Libertyville finished Friday's round in sixth place, as Matt Bystol (103), Trey Ayala (135), Joey Callen (152), Jake Hogan (215), and heavyweight Tom Nield all reached the quarterfinals, with Bystol, Ayala, and Hogan all winning to reach Saturday's semifinal round.
Dundee-Crown finished the day tied for 20th place, with Mike Lukowski advancing to the semifinals at 189 pounds.