Kevin Gagan spent the first week of the wrestling season hunting for deer in southern Illinois. Not only did he miss two meets, he didn’t get a deer.
The Lincoln-Way senior didn’t miss anything Saturday in the Wheeling Invitational. The 135-pounder won the championship and was voted the meet’s outstanding wrestler after a 10-5 victory over Wheeling’s Jamie Smith.
“I might be a little behind, but I’m all right,” said Gagan, who was a victory away from qualifying for the state meet last season. “We had the trip planned for a long time or I wouldn’t have missed the wrestling meet.”
Gagan, who pinned St. Laurence’s Jack Love in the semifinals, improved to 4-0. This season Gagan is cutting less than 10 pounds from his football weight, and it has improved his wrestling.
“I was 143 at the start of the season,” said Gagan, whose team finished third behind Sandburg and Wheeling. “I’m not cutting as much as last year. We have the new tests [to determine weight] and that makes it easier. I can eat the day of the meet and have a little energy.”
Sandburg scored 226.5 points and had six individual champions. Wheeling was second with 175.5 points and three champions. While Sandburg coach Mike Polz was happy his team won, it was a tough day for the Eagles.
“It was an up-and-down day,” said Polz, whose team is 8-0 in duals. “We had a pretty good first round, but then we got injured at 152 with a knee injury [to Ben Friedl]. Then our 103-pounder, Mike McAuliffe, was sick all week and then had a relapse in the second round. Then at 189, [Jon Crettol] got hurt Friday and really sucked it up to win his first match but couldn’t go in the finals. The effort levels were great, but we had a couple of unfortunate injuries. The last round we were just hoping nobody would get hurt.”
The Eagles got titles from Jake Gerdes (112), Brandon Precin (119), Matt Cusick (125), Ryan Precin (130), Eric Kruger (140) and Glenn Hurt (171). Kruger is the only senior among Sandburg’s champions. Gerdes, Brandon Precin and Hurt are sophomores. Ryan Precin is a junior; Cusick is a freshman.
“We have a lot of young guys who are wrestling well,” Brandon Precin said. “I think if we keep on wrestling with this kind of intensity, we’ll go far.”
Wheeling got titles from Don Anderson (160), P.J. Akouri (189) and Anthony Fina (215). It was the third straight day of competition for the Wildcats. They defeated Hersey in a dual Thursday and Rolling Meadows on Friday because of a quirk in the Mid-Suburban League schedule.
“Wrestling three days in a row is tough,” Wheeling coach Neil Weiner said. “No other sport does it. Making weight three days in a row is very tough. I’m surprised we wrestled as well as we did. It was grueling. It was a tough weekend for a lot of these kids.”
