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Sports
Tale of two halves : Sports : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisTale of two halves
| Oswego East wrestling leads early, but lower weights seal win for Oswego
| by Kristin Sharp
| 12/13/2012
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The Oswego East wrestling team traveled to Oswego last Thursday for a Southwest Prairie Conference dual meet against the undefeated Panthers and quickly built a 13-0 lead on the scoreboard.
Despite a string of victories in the upper weights, Oswego East lost six consecutive bouts in the lower weights and Oswego emerged with a 43-29 victory. With the win, the Panthers improve to 3-0 in the SPC and hold a 6-3 overall dual meet record. Oswego East moved to 1-2 in the league, and is now 8-9 after competing at the Glenbard East Quad last Saturday.
"We had a shift in our lineup this week so we had some holes we had to fill and a couple injuries up top so definitely our lightweights were our strength last week," Oswego head coach Andrew Cook said. "We battled back and the kids did their job and tried to keep the bonus points to a minimum. We definitely have more work to do too."
The dual meet started at the 170-pound weight class and Oswego East freshman Nick Wadsworth pinned Oswego senior Brandon Davis at the 4:17 mark. Oswego East junior Joey Torres won an 8-5 decision over Oswego senior Adrian Herrera at 182 and Oswego East sophomore Dan Moran won a 12-4 major decision over Oswego sophomore Charlie Kirkwood at 195.
Oswego senior Max Hively pinned Oswego East senior Lucas Johnson in 57 seconds to put the Panthers on the scoreboard, 13-6, but Oswego East junior Steve McMahon pinned junior Charlie Smith in 3:59 to extend the Wolves' lead, 19-6.
"Going in we knew our upper weights were better than our lower weights and their lower weights were better than ours," Oswego East head coach Mike Jezioro said. "I thought it was going to be a question of who could give up the least amount of bonus points would finish strong. Oswego did a good job of that. We pinned them at 170, but at 182 they kept it close. We need to do a better job of getting more bonus points."
Oswego East had its first 106-pound competitor this year as freshman Lonnie Kerr made weight after starting at 113, but was disqualified in his match against sophomore Alex Temes, and Oswego East forfeited at 113 to sophomore Andrew McFall.
Oswego sophomore Jack Pradel gave the Panthers their first lead of the night when he pinned junior Austin Scaliatine in 1:51, and the win at 151 moved Oswego ahead 24-19.
Oswego junior Nick Schultz won a 12-0 major decision over Oswego East senior Justin Garza at 126 and Oswego sophomore Brandon Mickelberg pinned senior Nate Underwood in 1:01 for a 34-19 lead after the 132-pound bout.
Oswego junior Nick Aguirre won a 10-3 decision against junior Mason Miller before Oswego East senior Ryan Draksler won a 9-1 major decision over Oswego sophomore Jacob Mateyka at 145.
"It was a tale of two halves. We built a lead and they got some momentum back and took the lead, and it was just too much to come back from once we hit 145," Jezioro said.
Leading 37-23 with two weight classes remaining, Oswego's victory was sealed.
Oswego East senior Andrew Chastain closed out the Wolves' scoring, adding six more points when he pinned Oswego senior Bo Pradel at the 2:56 mark at 152, and Oswego senior Max Larsen closed out the night by pinning Oswego East senior Tim Iannantone in 5:33 at 160.
Oswego East took time to regroup in the practice room on Friday before entering the Glenbard East Quad last Saturday.
"We tried to focus on getting excited and prepared for a Saturday morning. It's easy to get excited for Oswego on a Thursday night," Jezioro said. "It's more difficult to get it done on a Saturday morning, and we talked about how regionals are on a Saturday morning and we have to find a way to make sure we're focused and wrestling our best on a Saturday morning. I thought we did a little better job, but Waubonsie and Glenbard East are just better than us right now. We still have a lot of things to work on."
The Wolves opened the day with a 54-28 win over Richmond Burton after the Rockets gave up eight forfeits. Richmond Burton won three of the four matches wrestled in that dual, with senior Mike Chavez pinning his opponent in 1:10 for the win at 220.
Oswego East gave up three forfeits against host Glenbard East in a 54-24 loss for the Wolves.
Underwood won by pin in 2:39, Miller won by pin in 49 seconds and Chastain won by pin in 26 seconds while sophomore Zach Prinz - who was out of the lineup against Oswego two days earlier - won at 170 by pin in 1:47.
Oswego East faced Waubonsie Valley to close out the day and lost 47-21, once again forfeiting at 113, 126 and 195. Kerr won by pin in 2:54, and once again the Wolves had success in their upper weights against the Warriors.
Chastain won by pin in 1:17, Iannantone won a 5-3 decision and Prinz won a 6-3 decision while McMahon won a 5-0 decision at heavyweight.
"Usually Waubonsie is a good bet they'll be in our regional, so any time you wrestle an opponent you might see in the postseason it's important to get those W's," Jezioro said. "It was nice to see Andrew, Zach and Tim right there in the middle get wins against those guys. Even though it's still early in the season, we won't see them until the regional tournament and it's nice knowing we got some wins. Hopefully we can do it again later."
Oswego East will now prepare to host Plainfield Central - currently ranked among the top 15 teams in Class 3A - today, Thursday, at 6 p.m. The Wolves enter the Lake Park Krupke Invite on Saturday at 9 a.m.
"Plainfield Central is not only one of the top teams in the area, but probably one of the top teams in the state so it should be nice to see where we stack up coming into Christmas break," Jezioro said. "Lake Park will be our first long tournament so we'll see if the guys can not only get one or two wins, but sustain it for an entire day.
Oswego will travel to Plainfield Central one day later, facing the Wildcats on Friday at 5 p.m. The Panthers will then take a six-day schedule break before hosting No. 10 Minooka on Dec. 20.
"It'll be exciting to see where we stand. Those are the two top dogs in the conference and we'll see how well we compete with them on Friday and Thursday next week," Cook said.
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