There are 14 weight classes in high school wrestling. Some tournaments have eight teams, some have 16 and a few have 32.
So the odds are long that the same competitor would be voted outstanding wrestler in three tournaments: an eight-team, a -16 team and a 32-team event?
Perhaps a statistician from MIT could quantify what Sandburg senior Pete Friedl did in December. The 171-pounder won titles at the Wheeling Invitational, Hinsdale Central’s Rex Whitlatch Invitational and Glenbard East’s Al Dvorak Invitational to earn the Tribune/WGN-Ch. 9 Athlete of the Month honors.
Friedl had to have an outstanding month to edge basketball players Pierre Pierce of Westmont and Roger Powell of Joliet. Pierce averaged more than 35 points a game in leading his team to an 8-1 record, while Powell captured most valuable player honors as Joliet won the Pontiac Invitational tournament last week.
Numbers are meaningless when trying to attach odds to Friedl’s month. The variables include domination over opponents and strength of the competition. According to Friedl, winning awards in wrestling can’t be planned. They just happen.
“I don’t really go in specifically trying to get it,” said Friedl, who is 20-0 and the top-ranked Class AA 171-pounder, according to Illinois Best Weekly rankings. “It just worked out that way. When I started to think about it, it was really up for grabs in all three meets. My teammate, (160-pounder) Joe Wassong, is also undefeated and also won all three tournaments. Both of us won in pretty convincing fashion. I think it could have gone either way in any of the tournaments.
“I just kind of got them, and it was pretty cool.”
Friedl, who was the Class AA 160-pound runner-up last season, defeated Brandon Check of Lake Zurich 12-5 at Wheeling for the title. At Hinsdale Central, he pinned Rolling Meadows’ John Warship in 2 minutes 44 seconds. At Glenbard East, after a pair of pins and a major decision over fourth-ranked Sam Kucia of Fenwick in the semifinals, he defeated Sycamore’s Dustin Docter 8-3. Docter is ranked second at 171.
“I think he’s at another level,” said Sandburg coach Mike Polz. “He’s a gifted athlete. Everything has come together for his senior year. He’s a gym rat. He’s always there, wanting to play. He’s made steady improvement since his sophomore year. Last year he made a big jump, and this year he’s made that jump again. He’s worked hard to get there.”
Friedl has become a dominator, no matter whom he has wrestled. He is always on the attack and rarely gives up any points unless it is a voluntary escape so he can score more points. As a senior, he is wrestling the way he had always hoped he would.
He said assistant coach Eric Siebert, an NCAA champion at Illinois, worked on strengthening his offense.
“I use that more now than I ever have,” Friedl said. “I don’t like any wrestling on the mat. I like being on my feet more. The thing that is different [about] me now and a couple of years ago [is] I used to be a real slow, kind of methodical wrestler. Now I’ve gotten so much better.”
After his junior year, Polz convinced Friedl to try freestyle wrestling to improve his skills in high school wrestling, which is folkstyle (permitting the competitors to spend more time on the mat).
Friedl spent the spring and summer wrestling freestyle and he was hooked. He was second in the junior nationals at 165 pounds two years ago and was fourth at 178 last summer.”I think I’ve grown as a wrestler,” said Friedl, who is looking at Northern Illinois, Michigan and Illinois as college possibilities. “Wrestling freestyle encourages wrestling on your feet. That helped me.”
Friedl credits his teammates, especially Wassong, for helping his development. He works out with Wassong, the second-ranked 160-pounder in the state, every day and also scrimmages with fourth-ranked 215-pounder B.J. Haddad. Siebert, who graduated from Illinois in 1997, is there to give him a good dose of humility daily.
“It helps a lot to have Joe there,” said Friedl, who thinks the Eagles have a good shot at a state dual-meet medal despite a tough road that could include Lincoln-Way, Providence, Marist or Mt. Carmel. “It helps out with conditioning and technique and competition. We keep pushing and keep pushing. Having B.J. there gives me more competition with a stronger opponent. I get the best of both worlds.
“Eric coming was really kind of cool. He was someone I wanted to impress right off the bat my sophomore year. You don’t often come across a national champion in the wrestling room every day. He does a pretty thorough job of beating me up. I’ll take a kid down a couple of times and Eric will tell me to come over and he [easily] beats me. It’s definitely very humbling.”
Now that the tournament season is over until the state series, Friedl is working on conditioning. After practice, he attends his 7-year-old brother Ben’s practice and gets in extra running. He doesn’t want December to be his best month of the season.
“My goals for my high school wrestling career were sophomore year I wanted to qualify [for state], junior year I wanted to place and my senior year, I wanted to win it,” he said.
“It’s coming along as I planned, and I’m hoping it will all come together at the end of the year.”
