EDWARDSVILLE – Alton had managed to build a three-point lead on Edwardsville through the first half of their Southwestern Conference dual wrestling meet at Jon Davis Wrestling Center Thursday night.
The Tigers then used four pins and a major decision in five of six of the lower-weight bouts to score a 52-24 win over the Redbirds in a triangular meet with Belleville Althoff; the Tigers defeated the Crusaders 48-24 while the Redbirds came away with a 47-28 win over Althoff.
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The Tigers improved to 17-3 overall and 5-0 in the SWC; the Redbirds are now 12-5 overall, 3-2 in the league following the loss to EHS.
The Tigers were coming off the difficult Cheesehead Tournament the past weekend in Wisconsin and Tiger coach Jon Wagner knew it was going to be a tough assignment taking on the Redbirds so soon after the Cheesehead. “It's tough coming off the Cheesehead, no matter what team – we only had five days since the Cheesehead and it's tough. So much is at stake with the conference title on the line; we have to be ready for these conference matches.”
“They've got some hammers that are down low (in the lighter-weight classes),” Redbird coach Eric Roberson said. “That's where we're a little bit young and inexperienced; I knew that coming in. I just thought our guys could had battled a little bit tougher. They need to see this competition because this is what we're going to be battling very soon come regional time.
“Our (heavier weights) did a very good job for us; they kept us in it a little bit. We need our lineup to be more consistent from our lights to heavies; everyone has some improvements to make in a lot of different areas. I think we got our eyes opened a little bit quick here.”
Edwardsville's Baylor Montgomery opened the Redbird-Tiger encounter with a 1:53 pin of Alton's Scott Storey at 152, giving EHS a 6-0 lead to open; Guy Brown then pinned Nolan Wosczynski at 160 in 2:40 and Markell DeBerry won by fall over Christian Everage in 3:29 at 170 to open up an 18-0 lead for the Tigers. The Redbirds answered themselves with a 1:22 pin by KeOntay Holmes at 182 over Tyler McCracken, then Keyondrick Russell pinned Sam Martin at 195 in 1:28 and Grady Womack won by pinfall in 1:27 over Bo Meikamp at 220 to tie proceedings up at 18-18. Ryan Kane, at 285, grinded out a sudden-death tiebreaker over Lloyd Reynolds 3-2 to put the Redbirds up 21-18 at the break.
At 106, Benn Lunn was awarded a forfeit to begin the second half, and that's where the Tigers took over; Luke Odom scored a 2:38 fall over Garrett Sims at 113 and Noah Surtin followed at 120 with a 2:40 pinfall over Gus Kodros; Alton's Hunter Hobbs then came away with a 7-2 decision over Dylan Wright at 126 to cut the Edwardsville lead to 48-24.
Jack Evans got Edwardsville back on track with a 2:49 fall over Lucas Tankersley at 132 and Joe Griffin took 49 seconds to score a pin over Pierre Evans at 138 for 12 more points for EHS; Rafael Roman then closed out the meet with a 14-2 major decision over Courtney Wilson at 145.
For the Redbirds against the Crusaders, Sims, Evans, Everage, Holmes and Womack all scored pins, while Wosczynski won by a decision; for Edwardsville against Althoff, Lunn, Surtin, Will Zupanci, Roman, Brown and Meikamp all recorded pinfalls, while Odom, Norman Harris and Martin all won by decision.
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