The long road to state began for the Libertyville High School varsity wrestling team on Saturday, Feb. 4, where they participated in regionals along with eight other schools.
Libertyville came in fourth overall in the meet with 135.5 points, barely edged out by Warren (136), who ended up in third place. Stevenson finished second with 156.5 points and Deerfield finished on top with a commanding 194 points.
Six wrestlers from Libertyville advanced to sectionals, which include four champions and two second-place finishers.
“It would’ve been nice if we could’ve got a couple other qualifiers. We had a very tough regional and didn’t quite do it”, said head coach Dale Eggert. He quickly added, “I’m very happy for our six sectional qualifiers. I think they are gonna have a good week of practice, and we’ll see if we can get those guys all the way to state.”
One of those six qualifiers is senior Alex Mitchell, who came in first place in the 106-lb. weight class. Mitchell has been out for much of the season due to a knee injury but nonetheless remains undefeated with an impressive 17-0 record, making him one of the team’s major contenders for state. Fellow senior Jackson Damenti (35-3) also finished at the top of his weight class (152 lbs.), as well as freshman Danny Pucino (34-4) and junior Charlie Schmidt (36-7) in the 126-lb. and 285-lb. weight classes, respectively.
Senior Drew Onufer (27-11) finished in second place for the 126-lb. weight class, losing against Kyle Clough (38-6) of Deerfield, but will be continuing on to sectionals. Junior Michael Gunther (27-8) also placed second, for the 132-lb. weight class, after being defeated by Holden Heller (35-3), also from Deerfield. It is worth noting, however, that Gunther is part of only a handful of competitors in the meet to get two pins over his four total matches, and he pinned both opponents in the shortest time, with a combined length of only 1:32 between the two matches.
“I (feel) real good about the six sectional qualifiers,“ Eggert said. When asked if he’d like to elaborate on any in particular, he said, “I can’t talk about one without talking about them all. They all did really well. They all had good opponents and scored a lot of points.”
The six sectional qualifiers will be wrestling again at Barrington High School this Friday and Saturday, Feb. 10-11, where they hope to move onto the state semifinals and ultimately, to state.
