Yorkville advances five wrestlers to state with one champion at Joliet Central Sectional

JOLIET – The kind of year it’s been for the Yorkville Foxes, one wouldn’t have been surprised if their entire team advanced to the state tournament.

While they certainly had a Saturday to be proud of at the Joliet Central Sectional, the standard they’ve set has been so high, they couldn’t help but be a tad bit disappointed.

The Foxes advanced five wrestlers to state of the 14 they sent to sectional with one champion in Jack Ferguson at 157. For most teams, that would be one heck of an accomplishment.

The Foxes are not most teams.

“(Today) was alright,” Yorkville coach Jake Oster said. “We didn’t wrestle as good as I wanted us to wrestle. I think we left a couple of guys home that could’ve been coming down with us. Bringing five guys down is good and that’s the standard for our program, but...we had four guys lose matches to qualify, so that’s always tough.”

Still, the Foxes fared better than the other Kendall County schools down in Joliet. Oswego High had four wrestlers at sectionals and only Brayden Swanson will be going on after he finished third at 144. Both of Oswego East’s wrestlers failed to qualify for state.

Still, that means six wrestlers from the area are heading down to state. That’s certainly worth celebrating

At 144 pounds, Swanson of Oswego took third with his pin of Jack Strezo of Lincoln-Way West in the third-place match. Van Rosauer gave the Foxes a third place finisher with a 4-0 decision against Nolan Vogel of Joliet Catholic at 150.

Yorkville broke through in the next weight class. Ferguson bested Jovan Vukajlovic of Homewood-Flossmoor in a 10-2 major decision at 157 to give the Foxes a champion.

“I feel good,” Ferguson said. “I feel like this is right where I need to be. Winning these matches against tough, great guys is good. I feel like I can get a little more offensive and tune my stuff a little better, but I feel like I’m in a good spot.”

At 175 pounds, Homewood-Flossmoor’s RJ Robinson beat Yorkville’s Luke Zook in the final.

Joliet Catholic claimed its second championship with Nico Rochetti’s win by technical fall over Yorkville’s Ryder Janeczko in the 190-pound final.

Charles Walker of Joliet Central got a win by decision over Roman Janek of Edwardsville at 215. The third place match was won by Nate Elstner of Lincoln-Way West over Yorkville’s Luke Chrisse, the final wrestler of the day for the Foxes.

Finally, Jonathan Rulo of Belleville East was victorious in the 285 pound match over Minooka’s Robbie Murphy. Third place was won by Gage LaDere of Lincoln-Way East by fall over Lincoln-Way West’s Brandon Bavirsha.

The individual state wrestling tournament will begin Feb. 20 at the State Farm Center in Champaign.