Oakwood/Salt Fork wrestling finish 4th at Class 1A state meet
By Fred Kroner
The Oakwood/Salt Fork wrestling team made history on Saturday (Feb. 25) in the IHSA Class 1A team-dual state meet at Bloomington’s Grossinger Arena.
In the program’s first-ever appearance on the state’s biggest stage, they took home a fourth-place trophy.
Oakwood/Salt Fork assured itself of some hardware on Friday (Feb. 24) with a 39-31 win in the quarterfinals over Elmhurst Immaculate Conception.
In the semifinals, the Comets fell to Yorkville Christian, 47-24. In the third-place bout, Lena-Winslow topped Oakwood/Salt Fork, 46-23.
The double setbacks on the season’s final day didn’t diminish the joyous feelings Comet coach Mike Glosser had for the experience.
“If you would have told me (this outcome) at the beginning of the year, it would have been everything I wanted,” Glosser said. “When I put the medals around the necks of our kids, it took the pain away.
“This is something they will remember for the rest of their lives.”
Before any matside coaching took place on Saturday, Glosser had advice for each of his squad members.
“We hope we can repeat this, but you never know what the future will hold,” he said. “I told them to soak in the environment. This is the pinnacle of our sport. The energy (in the building), it was electric.
“The kids know they did something special. Every kid competed super hard.”
For the weekend, three Comets compiled 3-0 records at state: Brayden Edwards (106 pounds), Tyler Huchel (113 pounds) and Reef Pacot (145 pounds).
Pacot, the individual runner-up at his weight class one week earlier, recorded two first-period falls to go with a 17-7 victory.
Edwards picked up a forfeit win and didn’t allow a point in his other outings, prevailing 4-0 and 7-0.
Huchel also received a forfeit win to go with a pin in 61 seconds and a 15-0 technical fall triumph.
Two other Comets (Pedro Rangel at 126 pounds and Carter Chambliss at 132 pounds) were each 2-1 at state. One of Chambliss’ wins was a 58-second pin.
At 160 pounds, junior Bryson Capansky had a memorable pin on Friday against Elmhurst IC. His fall in 43 seconds marked the 100th win of his prep career.
Two other Oakwood/Salt Fork wrestlers (Dalton Brown at 170 pounds and Doug Myers at 220 pounds) also secured one win at state by pin.
Rather than add pressure to his young squad – which has just three seniors – Glosser took the opposite approach at the dual-team finals.
“I told them to have fun and be a competitor,” he said. “If you have fun, good things will happen.”
The Friday match was the one which guaranteed the program of its first piece of state hardware for wrestling.
Though Huchel was victorious in the first match contested (113 pounds), the Comets lost three of the first five bouts and fell behind, 14-9.
Wins by Pacot, Capansky and Brown then helped boost Oakwood/Salt Fork into a 27-19 advantage.
Of the next four matches, however, the lone Comet win was a forfeit awarded to Ezekiel Smith at 195 pounds.
With only the 106-pound match remaining, Oakwood/Salt Fork held a slender 33-32 lead.
However, there was no pressure on Edwards as Elmhurst IC didn’t have a wrestler at 106 pounds to put on the mat. The final score (39-31) reflected a point IC lost for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Though Elmhurst IC won seven of the 12 contested matches, Glosser said the difference was the ability of many of his wrestlers who did not win to prevent the loss of extra team points.
A pin would add three additional points to the opposing team’s total, a technical fall would add an additional two points and a major decision would increase the opposition’s score by an extra point.
“We saved team points at 120 and 126 (by Jack Ajster and Rangel), by not getting pinned,” Glosser said.
Knowing that his team was guaranteed of receiving 12 points late in the match (from the two forfeits) helped Glosser in his meet preparations.
“We had different scenarios, depending on how other matches went,” he said. “It’s cool that they were able to experience success.”
In the semifinals, the Comets were within an 18-9 margin of Yorkville Christian before losing five straight matches. By the time Myers registered a 59-second pin at 220, Yorkville had already clinched its advancement to the finals. In the third-place match, which started in the 126-pound weight class, the Comets won three of the first four matches and built a 16-6 lead.
However, Lena-Winslow strung together wins in seven consecutive weight classes to clinch the third-place trophy.
“Let’s hope we’ve left a footprint going forward,” Glosser said. “Like the first (individual) state champion, it adds relief to the room; that we can get state trophies.
“It’s believing in yourself and believing in something, and your mind plays a huge part in that.”
The Comets, who were ranked 21st in the final regular-season poll by Illinois Matmen, finished the year with an overall dual-meet record of 22-12. The semifinal round loss snapped a six-match winning streak.
The team’s seniors were Pacot, Myers and 152-pound Blake Barney. The trio combined for 83 wins this season.
Pacot established season (51-4 record) and career (162-19 mark) program records for wins.
Joining Pacot among the list of top winners for this season were Capansky (43-12), Huchel (39-12), Rangel (35-10), Ajster (33-16), Edwards (32-8), Brown (30-12), Carter Chambliss (21-14) and Harley Grimm (21-11).
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Another first for the Oakwood/Salt Fork program during the weekend was the school’s first-ever girls’ state-meet participant.
Freshman Taylor Owens advanced in the 135-pound weight class. She produced the program’s first win at state by a girls’ competitor when she scored a pin in 3 minutes and 9 seconds in her second match.
Owens was 1-2 at state and finished the season with an overall record of 18-21. Many of her matches during the regular season were against boys.
“In her third match, we almost found a way to come out on top,” Glosser said, referring to a 9-5 loss.
Glosser inserted Owens in the lineup for all three of the Comets’ subsequent state-dual meets.
“As soon as she was done (in the girls meet), we put her in,” he said. “We told her, ‘This is your team’ and she was all for it.
“She stepped in and battled.”
