Dundee-Crown shakes off loss to McHenry with 3-1 day
Dundee-Crown High School 135-pounder Edwin Mendoza realized exactly what was at stake.
With Prospect leading 32-31, Mendoza had to win his match against Harry Hamilton for his Chargers to win the match and finish Saturday's Dundee-Crown quadrangular with a 3-1 record.
Mendoza didn't fold under the pressure. He got the job done. He decisioned Hamilton 16-5 to lead the Chargers to a 35-32 win over the Knights.
"Edwin is a tough, tough kid," said Dundee-Crown coach Al Zinke. "He just worked hard and out-toughed the Prospect kid. Edwin was outstanding. It was great to end the day with a win."
Mendoza was confident he could win.
"I knew I had to go full go," said Mendoza. "I knew I had to wrestle well and I just wanted to help us win and it feels good."
D-C placed second to defending Class 4A state champion Oak Park River Forest, which was 3-0. D-C edged Lane Tech 42-39 and cruised past Boylan 55-14, but was crushed by OP-RF 71-6. Lane Tech and Prospect were both 1-2 while Boylan was winless at 0-3.
"We had a very disheartening loss against McHenry (Friday) night, but the kids bounced back today and worked really hard today,"said Zinke. "We had a very good day of wrestling and everybody in our program got to wrestle today. We couldn't even wrestle some our better kids in all four matches because of the 21 dual meet limitation. But we had a lot of kids wrestle well. Oak Park was just a better team. They have four state qualifiers back from last year's state championship team."
Against Prospect, Mendoza was joined in the winners circle by Jermiko Villanueva (112, decision); Travell Rounds (119, pin); Francisco Abitua (145, major decision); Mike Rust (160, pin) and Cody Churkey (189, pin). Connor Lewis at 103 pounds won by forfeit
Rust, who also wrestled at 171, was the lone Charger to win all 4 matches, winning 3 by pins and 1 from a major decision.
"Mike Rust had an outstanding day of wrestling," said Zinke. "He worked hard and did a great job."
Villanueva (112) won 3 matches, 1 by forfeit while Lewis (103) won 3, 2 by forfeits. Winning 2 matches for the Chargers were Churkey (2 pins), Jimmy Kuczynski (189, 2 pins) and Abitua (pin, major decision).