Sandwich puts a damper on Plano’s senior night with 43-31 victory

PLANO – It was on Thursday’s senior night that Plano’s Trey Gilford soared towards Sandwich‘s Cooper Corder in the waning seconds of the third period during their Kishwaukee River Conference dual.

The senior fought to the very end, but he and the Reapers fell short of Corder and the Indians 43-31.

Sandwich put a damper on the night’s festivities as the Reapers recognized 11 seniors. They also celebrated their two senior girls wrestlers and senior team stat girl Taylor Downs. After introducing them and their families, Plano’s Jacky Diaz earned an early pin in the lone girls match.

The Sandwich boys had seven straight victories during one stretch.

“It’s always great to beat Plano,” Sandwich coach Derek Jones said. “We always have the rivalry between our towns. They’re very tough with a lot of great wrestlers and coach (Dwayne Love). Love and (James) Ford have been doing great things these last few years building the program up.”

Corder knew to be ready for anything. That makes the clash between rivalries who have strong programs extra special.

“I just assumed he was going to try something,” Corder said. “I didn’t expect him to jump at me so I just did whatever I could to react, especially in a dual like this. We wrestle all the time and see these guys everyday almost, so you never know what will happen.”

He knew it would be a battle all night, earning a 13-2 decision in his match at 144 pounds.

“Going into this we knew every match was going to be tough,” he said. “All the guys did a good job of staying composed and not letting things get to them. Even the guys who lost put in a good fight so this is a good thing going into regionals. Tough matches get us ready.”

Devon Blanchard (215) picked up Sandwich’s first of eight victories.

“I’m happy to see the result come out like it did tonight,” Jones said. “Cooper (Corder) has been dealing with an illness but still gritted it out tonight. Jaxson (Blanchard) is wrestling well, Colten (Stone) is wrestling a little bit better here. Jakub (Gruca) had a rough loss last night on our senior night and rebounded back the next day so that was nice for him."

The dual began at 175 with Plano senior Luis Ballesteros earning a 13-3 major. He was happy to help his team.

“We have some areas to improve in,” Ballesteros said. “It was solid overall though. I wrestled horribly today. It wasn’t a good day. I felt the pressure coming in and I just got to work to improve, I guess. We’re hoping to beat Yorkville Christian at regionals hopefully, but we’ll see what happens.”

Hunter Whitecotton (106), Dominick Urbanski (113) and Leo Harbacek (120) won by forfeit and Gruca (126), Stone (132), Blanchard (138) and Corder followed with wins to safely outdistance the Reapers with three bouts remaining.

Blanchard pinned Plano senior Marcos Garcia with 25 seconds left in their match.

“He’s the funky wrestler so he always comes up with something,” Jones said. “I’m just looking for better wrestling, to get better from match to match from our kids now. While it’s great to win as a team and get the team feeling of winning, right now it’s getting into the individual portion of the season where we want to see growth from each individual.”

Plano seniors Tyler Mast (285) Oscar Cervantes (165) also won by forfeit. Cervantes, who hopes to pursue an MMA career after high school, didn’t get a chance to wrestle one final time in front of the home crowd.

“I fell in love with MMA in middle school,” he said. “It was nice to end it off at home (despite not wrestling). It’s a nice feeling. Good to see the seniors. All of them wrestled well. They all tried. Good wrestling.”

Plano senior Richie Amakiri pinned Sandwich’s Kaden Clevenger at 190.

“It’s not the outcome I wanted, but sometimes you can’t always get what you want,” he said. “I’m just happy I was able to come out here and wrestle the best I could. I was happy for that. We just got to accept what it is and it’s the past so keep building from that and hopefully we can go win a regional title.”

Plano seniors Antoine Gilford (150) and Caidan Ronning (157) won by major and tech fall.