We've been off for about a week now, and the guys are ready to get back on the mats. We are heading down to Lincoln Community High School here in just a few minutes to compete against 23 other teams in the 2 day tournament. Last year I thought we held our own for being a smaller school in the mostly 2 and 3 A team tournament with a 13th place finish. I am hoping to improve that with a top 8 finish. Finishing in the top 1/3 would be great for our kids and the program. We will have to wrestle tough, and better on day two than we did at the Reaper.
JV has had some really great opportunities to get some experience. Last Thursday they went down to Wilmington to wrestle in a dual tournament. Although they had a final record of 1-3, they all got some much needed mat time and saw some really good programs in St. Rita, Joliet West and Niles Notre Dame. The victory was over Manteno and came down to the last match to decide the outcome. Jose Aguilar was able to pull of a great win to give the JV their first win of the day.
The JV traveled to Sandwich yesterday for their JV invite. We had some weight issues, which is becoming all too common at the JV level, that depleted our line up a little bit but we were able to come away with two place winners, Arian Herrera took first place at 285 and Zach Peruski ended up a runner up at 189.
Like I said, weight is becomming an issue. There are only 2 or three kids in single digits for body fat, so there is room to loose safely for all of our guys. If a wrestler commits to making a weight he needs to make it...end of story. He is letting down his team if he does not, and that, to me, is completely unacceptable. One more month of wrestling before the state series to figure it out.
I will try and get on tonight to post results from today's first round at Lincoln. I hope that everyone had a great Christmas. I know I did.
