Princeton sends 5 to semifinals, ties for fifth in PIT

PRINCETON - The Princeton Tigers made a rush to the semifinals of the Lyle King Princeton Invitational wrestling tournament, sending five wrestlers into contention for a championship.

While it proved not to be a gold rush, the Tigers scored five medals and chased down a tie for fifth place, the best in Steve Amy’s tenure as Princeton coach. They placed sixth last year.

Vandalia (279.5) claimed first place followed by Coal City (272), Richmond-Burton (184) and Newman (148) while the Tigers and Dixon tied for fifth at 129.

Senior Ace Christiansen led the Tigers with a runner-up finish at 144 pounds. Also medaling for the Tigers were senior heavyweight Cade Odell and freshman Kane Dauber (132) taking third, junior Casey Etheridge placing fourth at 165 and classmate Augustus Swanson claiming sixth at 120.

It wouldn’t have been too far of a stretch for Tiger fans to believe they could get all five wrestlers to the finals, but Christiansen proved to be the only one.

“The semifinal round wasn’t the best, but we did a good job bouncing back and continued to wrestle hard,” Amy said. “We were hoping to get more than one (to the finals). That wasn’t our round. It was a rough one. Things got snowballing the wrong way on it. Not much you can do.”

Christiansen would have liked to move up to the top spot in his final PIT, but walked away satisfied with a second place finish at 144. He met Emmett Nelson of Richmond-Burton, losing by a 22-14 major decision.

“It’s all right. Can’t get them all,” he said. “He kept coming at me and made me wrestle on my heels and against a good wrestler like that, you’ve got to come back at him too and I don’t think that’s going to happen.

“I knew he was going to be solid. It was good to wrestle him now and not later in season when I don’t know anything.”

Christiansen started the day with a fall at 2:50 over Evan Cox of Clifton Central in the quarterfinals and followed with a 12-10 decision over Charlie Wittmer of Warrensburg-Latham in the semifinals to punch his ticket to the finals.

Odell didn’t even know if he was going to wrestle earlier in the week, battling a lingering injury. He was pretty satisfied after coming away with a quick fall in 1:26 over Randy McPeek of Dakota to walk away with third place at 285.

“We didn’t actually know if I was going to wrestle in this tournament until probably around Wednesday,” Odell said. “I just said I’m going to do it. We went after it knowing it might not be possible to win it all, but we’re sure going to give it a good try.

“I was able to rest in Jesus while I was wrestling and the outcome of the match was unimportant to me. It was all taken care of already.”

Odell pinned Payton Vigna of Coal City at 2:50 in the quarterfinals, but was knocked out of the title hunt in the semifinals, losing by a 4-1 decision to eventual champion Colin Kraus of Richmond-Burton. He bounced back with a 12-0 major decision over Darian Holloway of Olympia.

The freshman Dauber, who watched last year’s PIT from the stands, was pleased to land a third-place showing in his first tournament.

“Good competition and wrestled some good opponents and magically, I got third,” he said. “Could have done better, but I’m a freshman. This is my first year wrestling and not much expected of me. My coaches expect a lot of me though. I just wrestle not to lose.”

Dauber edged Tyler Huchel of Fithian-Oakwood 5-4 in the quarterfinals, but ran into Dean Wainwright of Riverdale in the semifinals, falling 15-3. He bounced back with a 12-2 major decision over Brody Matthews of Vandalia.

Etheridge worked his way into the 165 semifinals with a fall at 1:46 over Logan Thoms of Clinton in the quarterfinals. He dropped a 10-5 decision to Brock Finch of Coal City before scoring a 17-2 technical fall at 4:56 over Brody Stein of Byron.

Lyndon Thies of Roxana defeated Etheridge 17-10 in the third-place match.

Swanson opened the day by defeating Vincent Moore of Litchfield by a 17-5 major decision, but dropped his next two, finishing sixth. He lost to Barret Speck of Illini Bluffs 12-8 in the fifth-place match.

Amy also saw good things out of his young wrestlers.

“We had some freshman wrestling hard. Brayden Bickett (106) and Corbin Brown (138) won a couple of matches. Our other guys, Jacob Paull (113) and Brennen Emmett (157) battled the whole time. There’s some good stuff to take away from it.”