CG-Belgium’s Erickson continues to dominate

Cedar Grove-Belgium High School senior Cael Erickson continued his domination of the 145-pound weight class in wrestling last week at the Mid States in Whitewater.

Erickson, the defending Division 3 state champion, moved to 25-0 on the season by going 4-0 and winning the title at 145 pounds.

But he faced a challenge in the finals.

Jimmy Nugent (19-5) of Downers Grove South jumped out to a 4-0 lead early before Erickson turned it on, scoring the match’s next 12 points.

He won a 12-4 major decision to win the bracket.

“That was a good little test for him. The kid (Nugent) was obviously a little better than we thought he was. He took us down two times right away, almost had us on our back,” coach Trevor Peterson said.

“He (Erickson) stayed calm and chipped his way back in.”

In the earlier rounds, Erickson pinned Nathien Guerra (10-10) of Round Lake in 50 seconds, won a 15-0 technical fall over Brody Weiler (11-5) of Madison Memorial and won a 9-0 major decision over Cayden Brandenburg (16-1) of Janesville Parker.

Erickson scored 45.5 points of the Rockets’ 155, good for 11th place in a field of 38 teams. Cedar Grove-Belgium won’t see any wrestlers from the top 10 in the postseason.

“Everybody above us was either out of state or in a different division,” Peterson said.

McHenry scored 278 points and edged Hersey’s 277.5 to win. Nicolet had 274.

Two other Rockets nearly pulled off titles. Jesse Burg at 113 pounds and Diego Morales at 285 each took second.

Burg (16-1) pinned Rilet Verbeten (6-9) of Wrightstown in one minute, 16 seconds, won a 6-4 decision over Cole Dummer (21-4) of Union Grove and won an 8-0 major decision over Jakob Orloff (16-3) of Pecatonica-Argyle in the semifinals.

In the finals, Burg lost a 5-1 decision to Jayden Yauck of Oconomowoc.

"Jesse had a really, really nice semifinal match. He wrestled very well,” Peterson said. “He just had a tough kid in the finals.”

Morales (24-1) pinned Riley Corneliuson (7-2) of New Trier in 5:48, won a 9-6 decision over Cody Steinbach (10-9) of Weyauwega-Fremont and pinned Jackson Braden (8-8) of Badger in 2:51.

In the finals, Morales was pinned by Ethan Hansen (16-2) of Appleton North in 1:37.
    Peterson said Hansen kept stepping on Morales’ toes, once causing him to fall backward. Instead of tucking and rolling back, he tried to get up straight “and had 260 pounds of freight train coming right at him,” he said.
    Morales won’t face Hansen in the postseason. Appleton North is in Division 1.
    Rocket Winston Reichle (17-10) was the other placewinner. He finished 10th at 152 pounds.
    Reichle won a 5-4 decision over Zach Anderson (7-7) of Bradley-Bourbonnais), pinned Landon Boyd (0-2) of Badger in 2:34, won a 7-1 decision over Noah Petrick (13-8) of Union Grove, pinned Connor Kelly (13-7) of Downers Grove in 3:34, lost a 9-3 decision to Logan Kirk (11-3) of Johnsburg, pinned James Amacher (12-3) of Poynette in 1:34 and in the ninth-place match lost an 11-4 decision to Matt Ilinykh (19-10) of Hersey.

“He had a nice tournament. He wrestled a bunch of good kids,” Peterson said.

The team finished about where he expected. If Mason Hoopman would have been back from an injury and wrestled well, the Rockets would have finished with a sixth-place trophy, Peterson said.

The overnight trip, he said, offered some fun and some good wrestling.

The Rockets were to wrestle one of the favorites to win the Big East Conference, Reedsville, on Tuesday, and they host the Rocket Invite on Saturday, Jan. 8.
Warriors put forth good efforts

Ozaukee’s 74.5 points and 27th-place finish doesn’t tell the entire story of the Warriors’ performance at Mid-States, coach Cole Large said.

“We had a lot of kids wrestle really well. They were winning matches and ended up losing or getting pinned,” he said.

Tayten Platner (19-3) led Ozaukee by finishing in fourth place at 106 pounds and scoring 29 points.

Platner pinned Tomas Thao (5-5) of Appleton North in 58 seconds, won a 4-1 decision over Rilan Smith (17-6) of Nicolet, was pinned by Ethan Spacht (8-0) of Bradley-Bourbonnais in 24 seconds in the semifinal, won a 10-4 decision over Logan Clausen (13-4) of Badger and in the third-place match was pinned by Lucas Galdine (14-3) of Wauconda in 2:32.

“He wrestled really well,” Large said of Platner.

Platner’s semifinal match against Spacht wasn’t unusual. Spacht pinned his way through the tournament in the first period and is ranked No. 1 in Illinois, Large said.

Senior Phil McLarty (8-8) at 132 pounds finished eighth.

McLarty pinned Owen Wagner (1-10) of River Ridge-Cassville) in 48 seconds, lost an 14-2 major decision to Kaleb Mannel (16-1) of Weuauwega-Fremont, pinned Logan C. Smith (2-10) of Bradley-Bourbonnais) in 2:03, won a 10-3 decision over Kaden Hebert (4-5) of Wauconda and won a 7-5 decision over Max Hennessey (16-8) of Delavan-Darien.

McLarty lost his final two matches, first by pin to Sorin Osadcii (16-8) of Homestead and then a 7-3 decision in the seventh-place match to Justin Scheisel (15-6) of Nicolet.

Large said McLarty was leading, 6-4, over Osadcii before getting pinned, and he was tied with Scheisel in the third period before giving up a takedown and then more points when he tried to do a roll.

“You gotta finish those. Those are good experiences for him to learn what’s coming,” Large said.

Mya Delleree (9-8) at 113 pounds was the other placewinner for the Warriors, taking 11th.

She was pinned by Jimmy Norris (18-6) of McHenry in 1:00, won a 15-0 technical fall over Tate McCord (4-2) of Bradley-Bourbonnais, was pinned by Cole Dummer (21-4) of Union Grove in 42 seconds, lost an 18-1 technical fall to Norris and won a 6-1 decision over Tracey Kessley (12-5) of Janesville Parker in the 11th-place match.

 “She ran into some strong kids. She finished strong at the end,” Large said.

“It’s nothing to sneeze at. Placing at Mid-States is tough to do.”

Large was impressed with freshman Jovan Lopez, who only weighs about 230 and gives up size to competitors at 285 pounds. In his only victory of his three matches, he came back to pin Jacob Wienke (6-8) of Edgerton in 4:00.

He was losing, 5-0, and took about a minute to set up a move to pin Wienke and “he got what he wanted,” Large said.

He praised Joe Grabowski, who went 1-2 at 145 pounds, Zach Bell (1-2 at 220) and Blake Cocanower (1-2 at 195). Cocanower was winning his matches before getting pinned twice.

“You gotta finish. That’s been the theme of the team,” Large said.

Regardless of results, the challenging tournament will serve the Warriors well going forward.

“You kind of get a good test midway through the season. You figure out the things we’ve got to work on and build on that,” Large said.

Ozaukee was to face Random Lake and Oostburg in dual meets at home on Tuesday before wrestling at a tournament in Port Washington on Friday and Saturday. The Warriors host rival Cedar Grove-Belgium at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 13.