Wrestling: Against strong field, Sterling takes third at own 2A regional

STERLING – Considering the competition they were facing on Saturday afternoon, there wasn’t much that didn’t go right for the Sterling Golden Warriors, and coach Keven Heller couldn’t be happier about it.

Of the 13 participants in their own Class 2A wrestling regional on Saturday at Musgrove Fieldhouse, 10 Warriors made it to the medal round and nine of them punched their ticket to next weekend’s Rochelle Sectional to give Sterling third place as a team against what has to be one of the toughest opening-round fields in the state.

[ Photos from the Class 2A Sterling Regional wrestling tournament ]

Geneseo, which had 11 wrestlers reach the championship match and came away with four individual titles and 13 total advancers, was the team champ with 236 points, clipping runner-up Rock Island (214), the Warriors (145), and the rest of the eight-team field.

“The guys that I expected to score, scored. The guys that I didn’t expect to score so much, scored. It’s incredible,” said a beaming Heller. “We have been coming to this point, the maturity of this team has been showing more and more each week. We’re more of a tournament team than a dual team, and we accept that, so for us to crawl into third, in this tournament, against all these great teams, as young as my team is, the performance today was unbelievable. I’m so proud of them.”

Leading the way was senior Tommy Tate, who claimed his first two matches at 160 in easy pins before scoring a 21-6 tech fall victory over Geneseo’s Aiden Damewood in the championship match. He’ll take a 35-10 mark to Rochelle.

“I’d wrestled him once before this season and I won, so today I just wanted to capitalize on his weakness, which is neutral, and just did my stuff,” Tate said. “Just did my thing and made sure I was in a good position.

“The wins feels good, and it means a lot because it’ll probably give me a better seed next week at the sectional. It’ll be tough, but if I wrestle to the best of my capability, I can make it through to state.”

Two other Sterling grapplers reached the final and didn’t win, but still advance in the runner-up position: sophomore Zyan Westbook at 113 and junior Dylan Ottens at 138.

Westbrook captured a 9-0 major decision over Geneseo’s Devan Hornback in the semifinals, but in the final against Rock Island’s Truth Vesey, had to take a medical forfeit . He’ll head to the sectional with a 22-7 record.

Ottens moved to 25-13 this season, winning by pin over Ottawa’s Malachi Snyder in the semifinals, then dropping the title match to Galesburg’s Gauge Shipp by a 22-5 tech fall.

Six other Warriors faced win-or-stay-home situations in the third-place matches, and five came away with wins.

At 126, senior Karson Strohmayer fell in the semis to eventual champ Antonio Parker of Rock Island, but bounced back to defeat La Salle-Peru’s Rylynd Rynkiewicz with an 11-1 major decision.

Austin Clemens, at 145, lost his very first match against eventual winner Kye Weinzierl of Geneseo, but battled his way through wrestlebacks and topped Galesburg’s Caleb Johnson 7-1 for third place.

The 170 class saw Sterling’s Gage Tate lose his first contested match to Emilio Torres of Galesburg, but also rebound through wrestlebacks to take third place with a pin at 3:18 over Geneseo’s Logan Palmer.

Posting another comeback was Chase Ullrich at 182. After falling in his opener to Ottawa’s Ryan Wilson, the senior captured his next three matches, the last one a 9-3 decision over United Township’s Chase Cassini to finished third.

In the small 195 weight bracket, senior Diego Leal fell in his first contest to Geneseo’s Aaron Betcher, but in the third-place bout was in total control and registered a pin at 1:39 on United Township’s Jordan Patz.

Finally, at 285, Sterling’s unseeded Javier Luna lost a second-round bout, then pinned Galesburg’s Jesse Hendrix, the No. 3 seed, at 3:38 to advance in third place.

Just missing out in fourth place at 132 was sophomore Landon Kenney, who dropped the third-place match by pin at 1:42 to Rock Island’s Temar Hudson.