Montini seniors finish with sweep

Thursday was Senior Night for the Montini wrestling team, but more significantly, it was the squad's last home meet of the season, due to an intensive tournament and out-of-state schedule that starts in earnest after the holidays.

So the seniors made the most of their night in a triangular meet against Neuqua Valley and Moline.

After watching Moline defeat the Wildcats 39-21 in a hard-fought match, the Broncos dispatched the Maroons 60-9 with relative ease.

They were just getting warmed up. After a brief ceremony to honor its eight seniors, Montini beat Neuqua Valley 75-0 to complete a banner evening.

And yet, according to senior 160-pounder Jake Stiles, it was all bittersweet.

"I feel like I'm a freshman again, it goes so fast," said Stiles, who won by technical fall over Moline's Jayden Terronez to set the final score in that match. "It just goes by so fast. We're already here, but it's over. It's like, no more meets here. It's kind of sad."

Fellow senior Pete Christensen - who beat Moline's Payton Abney at 195 in 25 seconds and won by forfeit in the same weight class against Neuqua Valley - echoed those sentiments.

"Me and Jake talked about it last night, we talked about it last week, we talked about it at the beginning of the year how it's going to be for our last meet in the gym," Christensen said. "It's sad. I wish it could last longer."

Still, Stiles, Christensen and their teammates walked away with plenty of memories, especially against Moline, which was 10-1 in dual meets entering its match with Montini.

Didn't matter. The Broncos raced to a 15-0 lead, then dropped three straight decisions, which cut the lead to 15-9.

And then? Then Montini (12-0) turned on the jets, winning the next eight matches in a row - five by way of pin, three through technical falls. The highlight was senior Dylan Burnoski's pin in 1:49 of Isaac Martinez, which made the score an insurmountable 37-9.

Against Neuqua, Montini recorded five pins, along with a 19-5 major decision by Nick Gonzalez at 106 pounds and a technical fall in 3:24 by Dylan Ragusin at 126. Four forfeits also contributed.

"Our senior class is unreal," Montini coach Israel Martinez said. "These boys have been with our program for years, and they all came in as little immature freshmen, not sure what they were going to do, but they really stepped it up. We're just proud of them as leaders."

For Neuqua Valley (7-5), it was a hard-luck night, but it started off great. The Wildcats jumped out to an 18-0 lead on Moline through pins by Jacob Boumans at 170 in 4:15 and Nolan Lebreck at 195 in 1:32.

But the Maroons won the next five matches to pull ahead. Denis Murphy stemmed the tide with a 9-7 decision at 126 that cut the deficit to 22-21, but Moline ran the table after that.

Lebreck, a sophomore, wrestled well in his 220-pound match against Montini, losing 9-8 to Colin Baker in the waning moments.

"I've never gotten the exposure that I'd like to at this high of a level, and whenever I'm working, I'm working to become a better wrestler so that no matter what, I can face kids I don't know, so the outcome can be positive," Lebreck said.