High school wrestling: Crystal Lake Central not afraid of shot at No. 1 Washington

Throughout the season, Crystal Lake Central wrestling coach Justen Lehr liked to joke that his team was the state’s “notable loss leaders,” referring to the growing list of names in their loss column on the illinoismatmen.com rankings page.

The Tigers remained ranked No. 2 in Class 2A all season but picked up five dual losses. All of those defeats, however, came to ranked Class 3A opponents.

“We practice at a level of intensity that we don’t really get scared of anyone or anything,” senior Lenny Petersen said. “It’s all about getting better. I’ve learned more from my losses, personally, than from my wins. And I think everyone takes (something) away from wrestling someone better than them.”

Lehr said he doesn’t care much about records, preferring to push his team outside of its typical 2A competition, specifically so they will be ready for the postseason.

“That’s our plan,” Central junior Connor Burns said. “That’s why we do our hard schedule is so we can compete with the best teams in the state no matter who they are, if they’re 2A or 3A, that’s kind of our game plan.”

On Saturday the Tigers will face the only team ranked above them in 2A all season, No. 1 Washington. The two will meet in the state quarterfinals at 11 a.m. at U.S. Cellular Coliseum in Bloomington. The winner will advance to face either Dixon or Mahomet-Seymour in the semifinals at 2 p.m. The state finals and third-place dual are scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m.

Washington is the defending 2A dual team state champion and also has faced a grueling schedule, with its only three losses coming to 3A No. 2 Oak Park-River Forest and two out-of-state teams. The Panthers had nine individual state qualifiers, all of whom medaled (two champions, two runner-up, three third place, one in fifth and one in sixth).

“We’re excited for the chance to see what we can do against them,” Lehr said. “Obviously, we’re overmatched, but, hey, we’ve been overmatched before so it doesn’t matter.”

Central, which had seven individual state qualifiers and two medalists, is back at the dual team state tournament for the third consecutive season after finishing fourth the past two years. The Tigers have now reached at least the dual team quarterfinals six times in eight years (they previously took second in 2010 and 2011 and were knocked out in the quarterfinals in 2012).

“It’s a testament to having kids step into the lineup like Eddie Diaz, Brenden Parks, having a kid like Wyatt (Blake) come out and help us,” Lehr said. “It wouldn’t happen if we didn’t get those kids out. We have a good mix.”

The Tigers qualified for the dual team state quarterfinals with a 45-21 win Tuesday over previously unbeaten and seventh-ranked Fenton, while Washington dominated No. 15 Ottawa, 71-7.

The two teams were scheduled to meet in a December quad at Yorkville, but it was canceled because of weather. They have a common loss in that both were defeated by OPRF, one of the best 3A teams in the state. Central lost, 54-9 to OPRF, while Washington lost, 42-18. Now, the Tigers say they’re looking forward to the challenge.

“Our team loves competition, so we’re not afraid of anyone,” Petersen said. “We’ve faced harder teams, we faced OPRF, we faced Marmion. I mean, we’ve faced tougher teams than they probably have. We like competition, so it should be fun.”

The marquee match should be the 138-pound bout, a possible state-finals rematch between Crystal Lake Central’s Petersen and Washington’s Blaize Punke. Petersen beat Punke by a 7-4 decision Saturday in Champaign for his second consecutive state title.

But with two teams that combined for 16 state qualifiers, there should be plenty of interesting matchups throughout the lineup. If both teams wrestled at the same weights as last weekend, there would be meetings of state qualifiers at 113, 126, 138 and 195. At 195, Central junior Seamus O’Donnell, who took sixth at state, likely will face Washington senior Jacob Warner, who won his third state title this weekend and hasn’t lost a match this season.

“We’re going to have some really good matches,” Lehr said. “I can see us winning five, six matches against them, whatever, and who knows, they’re high school kids. Flip a coin.”