Bulldog wrestling places third at IHSA Class 2A dual-team state tournament
By Fred Kroner
Mahomet-Seymour’s wrestling team bounced back from a semifinal loss on Saturday (Feb. 26) to win the third-place match in the IHSA Class 2A dual-team state tournament later in the day at Bloomington’s at Grossinger Motors Arena.
M-S reached the semifinals by virtue of a 49-25 quarterfinal-round triumph over 18th-ranked Chicago Brother Rice on Friday (Feb. 25).
Third-ranked Deerfield (which had six individual state medalists a week earlier) dropped the fifth-ranked Bulldogs, 34-18, in the semifinals.
In the third-place match, the Bulldogs edged 15th-ranked Antioch, 35-34, to become the first M-S wrestling team in school history to hit 30 dual-meet wins in a single season.
The state trophy was the first for M-S since the 2001-02 team finished in fourth place.
This year’s final dual-meet record was 30-4.
During the four-meet state series this week (including the Tuesday (Feb. 22) team sectional match, three Bulldogs went 4-0: Braeden Heinold (152 pounds), Mateo Casillas (195 pounds) and Camden Harms (285 pounds).
Harms pinned his final three opponents to finish second on the team in pins (25) to 106-pound Caden Hatton (27 pins).
Casillas raised his school-record single-season win total to 57. The previous mark, held by Hunter Crowley, was 53.
Heinold is a senior who fell short in his bid to qualify for state as an individual, but approached the team duals with a renewed vengeance.
“When he lost at sectionals, it was heartbreaking,” M-S coach Rob Ledin said, “but I told him one tournament doesn’t define a career.
“Against Deerfield (in the team duals) he took the kid (Stamos Tsakiris) who placed sixth at state (beating him 3-2). There has to be satisfaction in that performance.
“Then you know you should have been on the award’s stand (at individual state).”
Harms was light for the 285-pound class and could have certified at 220, but instead bulked up to 235.
“He’s athletic and does things that big heavyweights don’t do,” Ledin said. “He can do ‘little guy’ moves and has learned how to be a heavyweight.”
Casillas set a school wins record that will be hard to break as long as the IHSA maintains the 45-match maximum for wrestlers during the regular season.
“He dominated in the dual team (matches),” Ledin said. “He wrestled good kids and stymied the things they do.
“He’s a tough kid to beat.”
Ledin might not have predicted a state trophy for the team when preseason practice began in November.
“Our goal is to be wrestling the last weekend of the season,” Ledin said, “but we had some holes and had to get people better.”
By season’s end, 36 different wrestlers had wins in varsity matches.
It took time to get the varsity lineup settled.
Reese Wilson, who wound up as the regular at 126 pounds, didn’t get into the lineup until Dec. 29 at Granite City.
“He was not in wrestling shape,” Ledin said.
Wilson lost his first five matches, but picked up steam and finished with an above-.500 season record.
“He won some big matches for us,” Ledin said.
A recap of the state meet:
Class 2A Quarterfinals
M-S 49, Brother Rice 25
The Bulldogs won nine of 12 contested matches and, after building an insurmountable lead, forfeited the final two weight classes (120 and 126 pounds).
M-S produced six pins, including one by Hatton in 10 seconds for his 100th career victory.
Teammates with pins were Gage Decker (132 pounds), Braeden Heinold (152 pounds), Ethan Grindley (170 pounds), Casillas (wrestling at 220 pounds) and Harms (285 pounds).
Decker’s win came in the meet’s first bout.
Brennan Houser (195 pounds) earned a major decision, Tallen Pawlak (138 pounds) picked up a regular decision and Lukas Alstetter (113 pounds) received a forfeit.
Houser competed at 170 pounds throughout the individual state series, but weighed in at 182 for the team duals, which enabled him to be entered at 195.
“We ask a lot of these kids,” Ledin said. “They didn’t argue. They said, ‘Yep, we’re doing it for the team.’
“This is a very resilient group with a lot of wrestling savvy.”
With Houser moving up a weight class, it left an opening for Grindley, who had never wrestled until this season as a senior.
“We told him, ‘Just be athletic,’” Ledin said, “and he got better and better.
“He won a JV tournament, and had a big pin against Brother Rice.”
Class 2A semifinals
Deerfield 34, M-S 18
Deerfield had an 8-5 edge in matches won, with neither team putting out a wrestler at 132 pounds.
Besides a pin by Harms, four M-S grapplers registered wins by decision: Alstetter (106 pounds), Braeden Heinold (152 pounds), Casillas (195 pounds) and Colton Crowley (220 pounds).
The meet started at 138 pounds and Deerfield grabbed an early 22-3 lead by winning five of the first six matches.
Class 2A third place
M-S 35, Antioch 34
Of all the 23 wrestlers on the Bulldogs’ dual-team tournament roster, the least likely to win a match in the IHSA third-place match was A.J. Demos.
His varsity season record was 0-1. And, he is a freshman at 145 pounds.
And yet, when M-S and Antioch took to the mat at Grossinger Motors Arena, the meet began at 145 pounds.
M-S had the choice of which wrestler to send out first, and Ledin’s selection was Demos.
And, he not only won, but also earned the Bulldogs an extra team point by posting a 13-5 major decision. Demos’ win catapulted M-S into a 4-0 lead on the scoreboard.
Ledin found himself in the position of revamping his lineup after 160-pound Jacob Dobbins suffered a broken wrist in the Friday quarterfinals against Brother Rice.
In the match where he was injured during the first 90 seconds, Dobbins was going against Nate Chirillo, the fourth-place individual finisher in their weight class a week earlier at the UI State Farm Center.
Dobbins stayed in the match for the entire six minutes, dropping a 3-0 decision.
“That was an amazing effort,” Ledin said, “and was like a win for us.”
To fill the void when Dobbins was sidelined, Ledin bumped Braeden Heinold from his normal 152-pound slot to 160 and then moved 145-pound Logan Petro to 152.
That left an opening at 145. The choice was Demos, who had originally certified at 138 pounds.
“We had faith in him,” Ledin said. “He’s a pretty calm kid. He has talent and is a scrapper.
“For him to win opened things up for us.”
The coach said Demos’ season record was deceiving. He made his varsity debut against St. Thomas More on Dec. 9, and was pinned after suffering a broken collarbone.
He was only recently cleared to return to competition.
In the end, both M-S and Antioch won seven matches, though the M-S lead had grown to the point where the final match (138 pounds) wouldn’t affect the team outcome, so the Bulldogs forfeited.
M-S had two pinners (Braeden Heinold at 160 pounds and Harms at 285 pounds) and two winners by technical fall (Hatton at 113 pounds and Casillas at 195 pounds).
Houser (182 pounds) claimed a forfeit win to go with Demos’ win by major decision.
M-S clinched the third-place trophy in the next-to-last bout when Wilson (126 pounds) won by regular decision. With one match remaining, M-S’ lead was 35-28 and it was impossible for Antioch to prevail at that point.
Schools receive bonus points for pins or forfeits (three extra points each), technical falls (two extra points) and major decisions (one extra point).
The bonus points were instrumental in the outcome. The Bulldogs captured 14 bonus points, with six wrestlers
contributing to that total. Antioch earned 13 bonus points, accounting for the one-point difference in the final match score.
Four Bulldogs who lost their individual matches played a key role as well by not allowing Antioch to add as many additional bonus points as was possible.
Camden Heinold (120 pounds) and Crowley (220 pounds) each saved three potential bonus points with losses by decision.
Teammates Decker (132 pounds) and Grindley (170 pounds) lost by technical fall, but saved a point each by not getting pinned.
“We had warrior stuff happening in our lineup,” Ledin said.
Crowley had to default out of the individual sectional two weeks ago with a sprained ankle and had limited mat time since, but he won two of three matches in the team-dual series to reach the 40-win mark for the season.
Hatton suffered a shoulder injury in the dual semifinals against Deerfield, but bounced back with a 19-4 win in the team third-place match with Antioch.
Six seniors were on the M-S state tournament roster: Dobbins (160 pounds), Grindley (170 pounds), Cayden Grove (126 pounds), Braeden Heinold (152 pounds), Petro (145 pounds) and Stevie Pogue (182 pounds).
Looking ahead
Chances are great that M-S will reach a major milestone early in the 2022-23 season.
With the third-place win over Antioch, the Bulldogs’ program – which was established in the fall of 1967 – has 992 all-time dual-meet victories. No. 1,000 could take place in December.
“That would be pretty special,” Ledin said.
IHSA records are incomplete, so the exact number of state schools with 1,000 dual meet wins is not available.
However, the only documented and verified IHSA members in that club are Granite City, Harvard, Bloomington and Lyons LaGrange.
Ledin likes the team’s prospects for next season.
“On paper, right now, I’m feeling pretty good about it,” he said. “We could have 10 or maybe 11 juniors or seniors in the lineup and we hope to one-up what we did this year.”
