Sports

Lions' Grapplers Prep For Sectional

After a victory-heavy regular season for Lisle's wrestlers, six will have State hopes at this weekend's Plano Sectional.

For head wrestling coach John Davis, February is the month.

“It’s a great time of year,” he said. “It’ll be nerve-racking this weekend, but it’s a great time of year.”

Nerve-racking because Davis’ team has six wrestlers competing this weekend at the IHSA Plano Sectional with State qualifications on the line. Two championship rounds and a consolation round will take place Friday, Davis said. The semifinals and wrestle-backs will pick up from there Saturday morning.

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Seniors Cam Castellanos (160 pounds) and Brandon Wolak (152), junior Brad Blechschmidt (125), and sophomores Brian Czyl (130), Ryan Kilroy (112) and AJ Pascente (103) all managed top-three finishes at last weekend’s Braidwood Regional at Reed Custer. They’ll have to do the same at Sectionals in order to qualify for the State Tournament in Champaign Feb. 18 and 19.

Blechschmidt, Czyl, and Wolak were Regional champions.

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Davis said he thinks coming out of a tougher-than-most Regional will help his Lions’ chances of getting through Sectionals. No Lisle wrestler did so last season.

“I’d take all six in a heartbeat but as long as you got one, that’s a good weekend,” Davis said.

It’s been a good season for Lisle, whose full roster has 10 freshman and 10 sophomore, six juniors and four seniors. As a team, the Lions finished 15-6 in dual meets (6-5 in the Interstate Eight Conference) and finished first at the Unity Invitational in Tolono(Dec. 18) and the Lisle High School Invitational (Jan. 15). They placed third in the team standings at the Polo Invitational (Jan. 8), fourth at the Interstate Eight Conference Tournament (Jan. 29) and third at last weekend’s Regional. (Only the top team advances from each Regional for team Sectional competition.)

“We lost a lot of top guys last year and the year before,” Wolak said. “I think that with the guys we got, we did a pretty successful job.”

Kilroy said the team fought through numerous injuries—including an ear issue for Wolak that required surgery and a week off during the season.

“A lot of JV guys got starts,” Kilroy said.

Among the Lions’ individual records are Pascente’s 18-13 and Castellanos’ 23-14. Czyl currently sits at 26-7 with Kilroy and Blechschmidt at 27-7. Fourth-place Regional finishers Scott Sheahan (140 pounds), a senior, and Greg Osborn (145), a junior, went 23-13 and 15-8, respectively.

Heading into Sectionals, Wolak carries the Lions’ best record at 28-1. Davis said the senior, who was a top seed at the Regional, can wrestle with anybody. But Wolak’s record is no guarantee.

“It makes you kind of nervous because you never know,” Davis said. “He’s had a great year, he’s had a great four years, but he’s never made the State tournament. This is his time to really come out and show that he’s of that caliber.”

Wolak said he led 5-2 in the third period of his 2010 Sectional semifinal before he “got tired and fell apart.” He wants different in 2011.

“I feel like I have work to do after Sectionals. But first I’ve got to make it. I’ve got to look one step at a time,” Wolak said.

A fourth-place Sectional finisher in 2010, Kilroy said his goal is to qualify.

“I’m looking to take top three in Sectionals and go downstate,” he said.

Czyl also has Sectional experience from last season. Blechschmidt is the only 2011 Lion with State experience. He qualified at 103 pounds as a freshman in 2009.

“This is what you work for,” Davis said. “It’s the goal of every kid that wrestles, I imagine, to go to the State tournament.  And as a coach, too.”

Though only six Lions have wrestling left to do this season, the whole team has been practicing this week.

“We know we’ve got to raise our intensity level,” Wolak said of himself and his fellow qualifiers. “We need even all the JV guys here just to help us get different looks even though their season is over. We need people pushing us.”

Davis said he cut practices down this week to 90 minutes from two hours, but had his wrestlers going hard. They could not be lackadaisical, he said.     

“They have to come ready to wrestle. So far we’ve had a good week of practice and when they step out on the mat they’ve got to know they can go out there and win,” Davis said.

You’ve got to love February.


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