Yorkville places second, St. Charles East third in Class 3A at dual team state – Shaw Local

BLOOMINGTON — The Yorkville and St. Charles East boys wrestling teams each earned hardware for the second straight season at the IHSA Class 3A dual team state tournamnet at Grossinger Motors Arena in Bloomington.

The Foxes — who placed fourth last season — finished second, falling 59-6 to champion Mount Carmel on Saturday night. Defending champion St. Charles East, meanwhile, bounced back from a semifinal setback to the Caravan to pick up a 37-22 triumph over Libertyville in the third-place match.

“They are good,” Yorkville coach Jake Oster said, his team finishing 22-5 in duals on the season. “They [Mount Carmel] are not only one of the best teams in the state of Illinois but the entire country. We knew this was going to be a very tough match, but my guys kept scrapping from start to finish and wrestled as hard as they could.

“The whole team was able to see there are different levels to things. Mount Carmel is just on a different level. They are very solid in every fundamental of wrestling all way through their lineup. There really isn’t a weak spot. My guys were able to see what big time wrestling is and hopefully take something away from today.”

Yorkville reached the championship match with a 36-20 win earlier in the day.

In the win over the Wildcats the Foxes received wins from Liam Fenoglio (113 pounds, by decision 7-3), Daniel Martino (120, by major decision 14-2), Dominic Recchia (138, by decision 6-2), Dominick Coronado (144, by pinfall in 5:16), Jack Ferguson (150, by technical fall 21-6), Cameron Peach (157, by decision 9-4), Ryder Janeczko (165, by decision 12-5), Luke Zook (190, by decision 5-3) and Luke Chrisse (215, by pinfall in 2:38).

Yorkville’s finish at state is its best since taking second in Class 2A in 2012.

“We’ll lose a couple starters in Dominick Coronado and Luke Chrisse, both state qualifiers, but we’ll have a lot coming back and a pretty good freshmen class coming in,” Oster said. “I think we’ll be pretty good again next year and hopefully can get down here for a third straight year.”

St. Charles East captured seven of the opening 10 matches in the win over Libertyville (13-3).

The Saints finding the win column were Kaden Potter (106, by decision 9-7), Dom Munaretto (113, by technical fall 22-6), Gavin Woodmancy (126, by technical fall 16-0), Ben Davino (138, by technical fall 22-7), Jayden Colon (150, by pinfall in 1:35), Gavin Connolly (157, by pinfall in 5:06), Anthony Gutierrez (165, by major decision 17-5) and Matt Medina (285, by decision 8-3).

“We had a couple of younger guys come up a little short in some close matches, but that’s why they are, to experience this,” St. Charles East coach Jason Potter said. “Today was some really high-level wrestling with the four teams left. I’m proud of the effort my guys gave today and all season.”

The Saints fell to Mt. Carmel 35-30 in the semifinals earlier in the day, with wins coming from Davino (138, by technical fall 21-6), Colon (144, by major decision 11-3), Gutierrez (165, by pinfall in 1:36), Brody Murray (190, by decision 7-4) and Brandon Swartz (215, by pinfall in 3:58).

“We knew Mt. Carmel, Joliet Catholic and us were all going to be in the hunt for this,” coach Potter said. “It was going to come down to who had a good day and who could stay the healthiest.

“The dual with Mt. Carmel earlier (Saturday) was a great dual, both teams wrestled super tough. We lost Tyler Guerra (138) to an injury in last week’s individual state tournament which was tough for us this weekend, but the guys all really stepped up and fought to the end.”