DeKalb boys, girls wrestling teams sweep season-opening matches

DeKALB – DeKalb’s wrestling teams opened the season on a positive note Wednesday, sweeping all of their foes in the DeKalb Super Duals.

The boys team beat Moline (61-18) and Lake Park (65-15), while the girls squad defeated Burlington Central (51-12), Moline (78-0), South Elgin (48-24) and Lake Park (53-24).

The win over Burlington Central was the most satisfying for the girls squad as the Barbs got payback for two losses last year – one in the state finals - to the Rockets.

DeKalb’s Reese Summer and Burlington Central’s Tori Marcus, who last met in the 115-pound state tournament fifth place match, battled in the 125-pound contest. Summer, a senior, won 6-2.

“Tori pinned Reese in the fifth-place match at state last year so kudos to both of them - for Tori bumping up to wrestle Reese and competing,” DeKalb girls coach Conor Infelise said. “That was a big win for. Reese.”

Barb Lana Zimmerman pinned Soraya Walikonis at the 5:35 mark in the 135-pound match.

“She revenged the loss from last year against Burlington,” Inselise said.

The Barbs coach already saw improvement from last season.

“Overall, I think we made a lot of big gains from last year. We’re competing on our feet, hand fighting, working on what we trained in practice and wrestling all as a team,”  Infelise said.  “We did well getting out on bottom. I think we got a lot some work to do on top, but overall I just thought we fought really hard, we competed and we put ourselves in all the matches. They’re following the plan.”

Summer, who won all four of her matches, agreed her growing team made a good showing in its inaugural meet.

“I think that we did really well today. This is the biggest our team has ever been. We’re still growing, we almost have a full lineup,” the senior said.  “I think we did great today. We have a few things to work on, but we did great overall.

Boys coach Sam Hiatt also liked what he saw on the mats.

“I’m really happy with the effort. These guys fought hard,” Hiatt said. “We’ve been grinding the first couple of weeks in practice and it’s fun to come out here and finally wrestle and see how the hard work paid off, It was exciting. We had some tough battles.”

Kaden Klapprodt’s 120-pound match with Moline’s Collin Ledbetter was one of DeKalb’s toughest contests. Klapprodt jumped out to a 7-0 lead only to have Ledbetter rally to tie the match. The Barbs senior regained control to win a major decision, 15-7.

“In my first match of the day, I came out strong, started off hot with a first period pin,” Klapprodt said. “I also came out strong in the second match, but it took a turn pretty quickly and I almost got put on my back but fought through and finished the match out on top.”

Nick Waddle impressed Hiatt with a quick win in the 215-pound match with Lake Park’s Antonin Svoboda. Waddle needed only 24 seconds to pin his opponent.

“I thought Nick Waddle was fun to watch today at 215,” Hiatt said. “He had a really good start.”