The Morton regional was good practice for Proviso East wrestling coach Bill Cartwright and assistant Charles Flowers. They spent a lot of time in the coaching chair.
The No. 1-ranked Pirates, with all 12 wrestlers in the finals, advanced to Tuesday`s Glenbard North dual-meet sectional with 239 1/2 points to 183 1/2 for second-place Lyons Township. Saturday`s finals were like a dual meet, and Proviso won eight matches.
”We have a little room to grow,” said Cartwright, who got championships from Reggi Ratliff (98 pounds), Robert Bond (105), Maurice Fields (132), Blair Walker (145), Fred Woodson (155), Ed Rossolille (185) and Ricky Stewart
(heavyweight). ”We`re not going to get better conditionwise, but we have to adapt to our weights. We wrestled pretty good. LT has some pretty good kids and we had some close ones. Some of our best kids lost to them. I`m happy with the way we wrestled.”
Lyons, rated 10th in The Tribune`s final regular-season poll, got four titles. John Larrison defeated Proviso`s Roosevelt Williams 8-4 at 112, Ray Serbick defeated Terry Murphy 10-6 at 119, Travis Tuomey defeated Bobby Walton 4-2 at 126 and Dave Streich defeated Stanley Hayes 2-1 in overtime at 167.
Stewart (27-4) was the only Pirate to win by pin in the finals, in just 55 seconds against Lyons` Sean Frisbie. Stewart thinks Proviso`s best is yet to come.
”We`ve had a couple of weeks off and a lot of us are rusty,” Stewart said. ”We`re getting back where we want to be. We still haven`t wrestled out best. We`re peaking now. We can still be better.”
Proviso will meet Waubonsie Valley, winner of the Oswego regional, in the first round of the Glenbard North dual sectional at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. No. 4 Naperville North, which won the Downers Grove North regional, meets Glenbard North, winner of the Glenbard West regional, in the other first-round match. The winners will meet for the title following the first-round matches.
Proviso East and Naperville North are similar. Neither team has lost a dual meet or a tournament all year. Both are well-balanced teams with no real weak links. If Proviso has an edge, it might be in the upper weights, but Naperville North might offset that in the middle weights.
”We`re pretty equal,” said Cartwright. ”They are solid all the way through. I hate to overlook Waubonsie Valley. They are tough, too. I think we have to get our weight down and not overlook anyone. I may substitute a little, but it will likely be the same lineup at these weights.”
Lyons coach Mark King, whose team lost to both Naperville North and Proviso, said he would pick conference rival Proviso if the teams meet.
”They are from our conference, and if we can`t win it, I`d like to see them win it,” King said. ”They have 12 seniors, experienced seniors. It should be a good meet. Naperville North is solid, better on the mat than on their feet. They are tough on top. They turn people. Proviso isn`t intimidated at all. Everyone of them has been to Champaign and they like the crowds. They will be tough.”
Defending state champion Joliet Central barely kept its defense alive by winning the Joliet West regional by three points over Providence. The No. 2-ranked Steelmen will wrestle Minooka in the first round of the Urbana sectional. Urbana will meet Normal in the other first-round match.
No. 6 Lake Park advanced to the Fenton sectional with a hard-fought victory over No. 7 Hoffman Estates. The Lancers scored 185 points to 149 for the Hawks.
Overtime wins in the semifinals by 145-pound champion Mark Zenner and heavyweight runner-up Ziggy Tkaczenklo accounted for much of Lake Park`s margin.
”They showed some guts coming back like that,” said Lake Park coach Jerry Ancona. ”We won some close ones. We did that a lot last week (defeating De Kalb in an Upstate Eight Conference dual). We fought hard for six minutes, these guys fought hard for nine minutes, and picked up the points we needed.” The Lancers advanced to the Fenton sectional and will meet Notre Dame regional champion Maine East in the first round. No. 5 Leyden meets Gordon Tech in the other first-round match. Lake Park has been pointing for a meeting with Leyden.
”It looks like it might be us and Leyden again, just like last year,”
said Lancer 105-pounder Sam Geraci, now 36-0. ”We`ve wanted them. We wanted De Kalb, Fenton and Leyden this year and we got De Kalb and Fenton so far. Beating these three teams have been our goals all year long.”
In the Bremen sectional, No. 3 Marist meets Bloom and No. 8 St. Laurence meets Andrew. Marist defeated St. Laurence 34-18 in January.
In the Lake Zurich sectional, Libertyville meets Wheeling and Dundee-Crown meets Grant.
