Men’s Wrestling Ranked Fifth

Men’s Wrestling Ranked Fifth in Second NCAA DII Wrestling Coaches Association Regular Season Poll

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(MANHEIM, Penn. – Jan. 2) – The McKendree University men’s wrestling team was ranked fifth in the NCAA Division II Wrestling Coaches Association (NWCA) second regular season top-25 poll of the 2019-20 regular season. The team and individual wrestler rankings were released earlier Wednesday.

In the firs top-25 poll of the 2019-20 season, the Bearcats were tied for the second-place spot with Nebraska-Kearney. Now, the Bearcats are starting off the new year in the No. 5 position with 56 points.

Below is the regular season team rankings second poll:
1. St. Cloud State – 111 points
2. Pitt- Johnstown – 70 points
3. Notre Dame – 67 points
4. Nebraska-Kearney – 57 points
5. McKendree – 56 points.

In addition to the team rankings, the poll individually ranks the wrestlers, where seven Bearcats made the list.
125-lb. – Marcus Povlick (Plainfield, IL/Plainfield North), ranked No. 2
149-lb. – Juwan Edmond (Bellwood, IL), ranked No. 12
157-lb. – Nate Smalling (Belleville, Ill./Belleville West), ranked No. 10
165-lb. – Nick Foster (Belleville, IL/Belleville West), ranked No. 2
174-lb. – Qian’te Wagner (Alton, Ill./Alton), ranked No. 12
197-lb. – Ryan Vasbinder (Grand Rapids, MI/Grandville), ranked No. 2
Heavyweight – Caleb Gossett (St. Charles, MO/Francis Howell Central), ranked No. 10

McKendree’s men’s and women’s programs will be back in action for the 2020 NWCA Multi-Division National Dual Meet Championship. The two-day tournament will be Jan 10 – 11 in Louisville, Ken., at the Kentucky Exposition Center.-McK-Print Friendly Version

Huskies Top Central Michigan

NIU defeats Chippewas for first time since 2003

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DEKALB, Ill. – The Northern Illinois University wrestling team turned in an impressive performance as it posted a 19-12 victory over Central Michigan at Victor E. Court Sunday.

The win was the Huskies’ first over CMU since Jan. 31, 2003 when NIU earned a 16-15 victory over the Chippewas.

“This is one of the biggest dual meet victories we’ve had, just in terms of not beating Central in so long,” NIU head coach Ryan Ludwig said. “We talked about team effort, everybody pulling together, fighting their fights, whether they be ugly fights or glamorous fights. I couldn’t be prouder of our guys for their effort, attitude and their willingness to put it all out there for each other.”

NIU (6-3, 3-1) won six of the 10 bouts on the day. Brit Wilson provided the match-clinching win on the afternoon.

With NIU leading 15-6 with three matches remaining, the Huskie sophomore earned a 19-6 maj. dec. win over Ben Cushman at 184. Wilson’s bonus-point victory gave NIU a 13-point lead heading into the final two matches.

“These dual meets come down to bonus points,” Ludwig said. “Brit Wilson, with his leadership, being able to post a maj. dec. to put that dual meet out of reach was just what a guy like Brit does.

The 24th-ranked Chippewas took the first match at 125 to open a 3-0 lead over NIU, however, the Huskies went on to win the next three bouts. Caleb Brooks earned a 5-4 decision over Brock Bergelin at 133, while Anthony Gibson posted an 8-3 win over No. 18 Dresden Simon at 141. McCoy Kent’s 5-3 win over Corbyn Munson gave the Huskies a six-point advantage.

After a setback at 157, Izzak Olejnik put NIU back in the win column with an 8-3 decision at 165. Kenny Moore extended the Huskie lead to 15-6 when he outlasted Jake Lowell, 6-5, at 174.

NIU returns to action Fri., Jan. 10 when the Huskies travel out West for a match with Cal Poly. The match begins at 9 p.m. CT.

NIU 19, CMU 12

125: Drew Hildebrandt (CMU) dec. Bryce West (NIU), 8-2
133: Caleb Brooks (NIU) dec. Brock Bergelin (CMU), 5-4
141: Anthony Gibson (NIU) dec. Dresden Simon (CMU), 9-3
149: McCoy Kent (NIU) dec. Corbyn Munson (CMU), 5-3
157: Logan Parks (CMU) dec. Dylan Thurston (NIU), 8-2
165: Izzak Olejnik (NIU) dec. Tracy Hubbard (CMU), 8-3
174: Kenny Moore (NIU) dec. Jake Lowell (CMU), 6-5
184: Brit Wilson (NIU) maj. dec. Ben Cushman (CMU), 16-7
197: Landon Pelham (CMU) dec. Gage Braun (NIU), 5-3
285: Matt Stencel (CMU) dec. Max Ihry (NIU), 5-3

-NIU-

What’s Next for Girls Wrestling in Illinois?

IWOCA Feature Story By Gary Larsen

1/4/2020

The high school wrestling community is ready for it, from coaches to officials and from parents to athletes.

An IHSA girls wrestling state tournament is on the horizon. It’s merely the logistics of how, where, and when that remain.

“It’s important to the IHSA that they do it right, and I understand that,” IWCOA Executive Board Member Colleen McGlynn said. “They have a plan for the state tournament but they don’t have a plan for how to qualify girls yet.”

An IHSA girls wrestling advisory committee will meet in January, to draw up the next step in the process. That process can’t happen fast enough for the more than 800 girls state-wide that now wrestle at the high school level.

The Illinois High School Holiday Open that took place on Dec. 23 saw more than 150 girls of all ages compete at Niles West. The event was sponsored by the IWCOA, which has thrown its weight behind the move to take girls’ high school wrestling to the next level.

“Their connection to the IHSA is invaluable and the IWCOA is the organization to help us move this forward,” McGlynn said. “I know they have the ear of the IHSA.”

For the IWCOA, it wasn’t a difficult decision to arrive at.

“If you look at our mission, our charter, it’s to support and grow and promote wrestling at all levels, primarily at the high school level,” IWCOA president Nate Kessen said. “That’s our mission, so for us it was kind of a no-brainer to get behind this and push it forward.”

Girls have long competed on boys’ high school teams in Illinois, but the nation-wide movement towards the creation of girls-only sanctioned competition is now a locomotive roaring down the tracks.

Eighteen states currently sanction girls’ wrestling at the high school level, including California, Texas, and Washington.

The key component towards growing the sport at the high school level in Illinois is the formation of a sanctioned state tournament. And as the saying goes: if you build it, they will come.

McGlynn just hopes it gets built sooner than later.

“Once you offer a state series and a state tournament, teams will start building. We already have teams building,” McGlynn said. “We already have schools with twelve, thirteen, fourteen girls on a team and they’re initiating dual competition.”

Downers Grove South and Oak Park and River Forest have two growing girls programs that squared off in a dual meet under the spotlight this season.

Dual meets will remain essentially informal events for now, but teams are gearing up for the future.

“Last year we had a smaller roster but this year we’re almost filling a whole lineup,” DG South coach Vince Liebich said. “It was really awesome and I was super pumped to see the girls wrestle under the lights like that. I think the more fun they have, the more people are going to see that, and the more girls that will want to be a part of it.”

A sanctioned state tournament will help that cause. McGlynn will again be involved in helping organize the annual girls’ state tournament in Springfield in March of 2020. But the event is not sanctioned by the IHSA and takes place nearly three weeks after the boys’ state finals in Champaign.

By that time, many girls who wrestle on boys’ teams have stopped training or moved on to their spring activities.

“We get a couple hundred girls to show up but you have eight hundred girls certify and ninety percent of those girls are done wrestling at the end of January,” McGlynn said. “We’re asking those girls to hold on until March to wrestle in a state tournament, and that’s why we have so much attrition.”

Boys programs will continue to see more and more girls join wrestling as the IHSA sorts out specifics and logistics. Niles West coach Anthony Genovesi had six girls wrestling in his program last year and that number increased to 10 this season.

Genovesi was happy to see the large number of girls competing at this year’s Holiday Open.

“If boys can learn from the sport, why can’t girls learn from it?” Genovesi said. “I have three young daughters that I brought here today. I don’t know if they’ll wrestle, but I want to at least show them that there’s another opportunity out there for them.”

One of the referees working the event in Niles was Grace Kristoff, the 2018 NWHOF Illinois Chapter Tricia Saunders Award Winner (pictured) who wrestled on the boys’ team at Belleville-Althoff and now wrestles at McKendree College.

Mary Kelly, Cassie Inman, Caitlyn Chase, and Haley Augello are just a few of the trailblazing Illinois wrestlers from years past who can relate to the odyssey that Kristoff similarly followed as a teenager.

As a lower-weight high school freshman, Kristoff held her own but by the time she became an upperclassmen, wrestling closer to 150 pounds, the task grew exponentially tougher.

“Those were men I was wrestling and I got whomped on,” Kristoff said. “It was terrible.”

Kristoff sees a better future for female high school wrestlers once the sport becomes a bona fide, sanctioned IHSA sport. Organizations like the IKWF and ILUSA are fostering girls’ involvement, which would also likely increase.

“I think they’ll get a lot more experience, you’ll have less kids quitting, and more girls participating and wanting to join,” Kristoff said.

Vernon Hills junior Magdalena Zucek placed third at 138 pounds in the Novice Division at Niles West, and she believes that once wrestling is sanctioned, perceptions can only change for the better.

“It’s empowering,” Zucek said. “It makes girls sports more relevant. When you think about wrestling, you think about guys wrestling but now that it’s on the girls’ horizon it’s going to give people a different perspective on girls’ and boys’ sports, and how they really aren’t that different. It makes it more credible for us.”

Vernon Hills coach Jerry Micelli was present at Niles West to coach Zucek and Kylie Schuldt, who placed second at 113 in the Elite Division.

Both girls wrestle on Micelli’s boys’ team at Vernon Hills. His opinion is clear on the subject of girls’ growth into the sport.

“I love it,” Micelli said. “I think it’s good for the sport and it’s about time. Our culture is changing and I think it’s pretty cool.”

Meet the Richwoods wrestling team and its 16 female grapplers

Article Source Written By: By Stan Morris of the Peoria Journal Star Posted Dec 25, 2019 at 8:00 AM  

The Richwoods wrestling room looks a little different than your average area high school wrestling room.

That’s because nearly a third of the athletes in the room are girls.

A dedicated commitment to recruiting females, those not in other sports in the winter or not in any sport at all, has paid off for head coach Rob Penney and his Knights.

A roster of 50 athletes includes 16 girls.

“We’ve had girls wrestling at Richwoods for years,” Penny said. “We’ve been pretty progressive all along, we’re just in a situation now where the (Illinois High School Association) is looking seriously at making it a sport. I’m just hoping to hit the ground running.”

Girls wrestling is considered an “emerging sport” by the IHSA. According to Oak Park-River Forest girls coach Fred Arkin, 641 girls were certified last year by the IHSA to participate in wrestling, a number up from 433 in 2017.

Richwoods is one of 54 schools registered with the IHSA — along with Metamora and Pekin among metro-area schools — as participating in the emerging sport of girls wrestling.

“It’s been a rewarding experience,” Penny said. “The girls are hard-nosed, they listen well. They remember moves faster than the boys sometimes, they work harder than the boys sometimes.”

Of the 16 girls on the team, junior Maria Lopez is the only returning female wrestler. She “fell in love with (wrestling) the first week” after picking up the sport last season.

She was also part of a promotional video put together at the end of last year by videographer Chris Nash. The video showed a wrestler making some moves, only to reveal at the end that the wrestler was a girl.

“Clearly, it worked,” Lopez said. “It was a big eye-opener that, ‘Whoa, a girl can do this,’ That showed a lot of women at the school that wrestling isn’t just for boys, and I can be aggressive, too, and I can channel that aggression into a sport.”

Two other big recruiters were freshmen Kyley Bair and Katlyn Boone. Both Bair and Boone earned fourth-place medals in their respective weight classes as eighth graders competing in the Illinois Kids Wrestling Federation girls state tournament.

“No one was expecting that,” Bair said of so many girls joining the team. “We were expecting like five, but then to see the next 10 come in we were like, ‘Whoa, that’s really crazy to see that many.’”

Lopez noted the influx of girls is not just for show, or because of peer pressure.

“The girls on the team are like, ‘Show me that again. How do I do that? I want to do that again,’” Lopez said. “Just repetition. They actually want to be involved. They don’t do it for the look, to say they’re wrestlers. They do it because this is where they want to be and want to show they can be aggressive as well.”

Boone, who was encouraged to start wrestling by Bair, has noticed the improvement and staying power of the girls out for the first time.

“I like to see everyone grow with the program, to see everyone who has stuck with it so far,” she said.

And the reaction of the boys on the team?

“We get along great,” Lopez said. “It’s never, ‘Oh, she’s a girl.’ They know that we put up a fight, too. They have more muscle, but we have brains, we have skills.”

Match time has been limited so far for most of the girls. But Richwoods will get its first chance to compete in an all girls formated tournament this weekend at the Ottawa Invitational.

“That’s crazy exciting, because a lot of times we don’t get many matches in because some schools don’t want to wrestle girls,” Lopez said. “An all girls tournament is going to be very good for us, so that we can all get as much mat time as we can against female wrestlers. You’re going to go a lot harder against them as well, because it’s not boy-girl so nobody is going to be holding back.”

Bair is also excited about the possibilities at Ottawa.

“To already have our first girls tournament is super cool,” she said. “It’s really exciting to see how much these girls have grown, just in the past couple weeks. It’s going to be a big eye-opener for everyone.”

Richwoods will take 14 girls this weekend in 10 different weight classes.

“I think the girls are going to surprise some people when they get to some tournaments,” Penney said. “They’re pretty tough.”

The girls will compete in two regular-season tournaments next year. This year, they’ll also compete in the Illinois Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association girls state series.

“This is almost pre-season for them, to get them geared up for the big tournament at the end,” Penny said.

Girls wrestling as an official IHSA sport may still be a few years away, but Richwoods has a good head start.

“I’m really looking forward to seeing where this thing goes,” Penney said. “Bigger picture is a quality varsity girls team traveling around the state exactly when the boys are doing the same thing and winning duals and winning tournaments. That’s the end goal. Right now, it’s just building the sport.”

Stan Morris can be reached at 686-3214 or smorris@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @StanMorrisPJS.

Andrew’s Kyle Silzer wants to ‘push the pace on my feet and take my guy down’

Article Source Written By: By PATRICK Z. MCGAVIN – DAILY SOUTHTOWN |DEC 30, 2019 | 2:03 PM

Photo: Andrew senior Kyle Silzer, who has moved up several weight classes in three varsity seasons, has a 14-4 record at 132 pounds this year. (Photo provided by Andrew Athletics)

Andrew senior Kyle Silzer loves a breakneck pace. He also has the ability to dictate the tempo at 132 pounds.

“I always like to push the pace on my feet and take my guy down,” Silzer said. “Let him up and take him down and try to score as many points as I can.”

Silzer is part of a proud family tradition. His older brother Jake, a three-time state placewinner at St. Rita, wrestled three years at the University of Illinois.

His youngest brother Trevor, a freshman, also starts for the Thunderbolts. Jake was the inspiration to take up the sport when Kyle was younger.

“He brought a sheet home for my dad one day, and my dad fell in love with it,” Kyle said. “And they brought me and my little brother into the sport.”

Jake is working with his brother to develop a more aggressive approach.

“Jake has been coaching me a lot and has encouraged me,” Kyle said. “It’s awesome having him around. We are always competing with each other, in and out of the room.

“Now that my little brother is wrestling this year, it is great to be competing with everyone.”

Kyle Silzer has a 14-4 record this season. He has excelled with a blend of quickness, speed, balance and technical prowess.

He also has adjusted to going up against bigger and stronger opponents, making a difficult leap by moving up several weight classes in three varsity seasons.

He wrestled at 106 as a sophomore and at 120 as a junior.

“I feel like everybody is really good at 132,” Silzer said. “I had my growth spurt during my sophomore year. As a sophomore, I started out at 126, but the kids were just too strong.

“Now, I just work to get better.”

He has also demonstrated a relentless style and unforgiving mentality, something he has adopted from working with his older brother.

“The way I see it is that you must have a serious dislike for your opponent for the six minutes you are out there and do everything possible to win,” Silzer said. “You can be friends after the match.

“When I am out there, I like to stay focused and try and score as many points as I can.”

Impressive showing: The youngest of the three Silzer brothers, Trevor showed off his precocious talent with an outstanding performance in the DeKalb Invitational.

Silzer posted two pins, a technical fall and two majority decisions at 106 in finishing 6-0 at the two-day tournament.

Joey Roti went 5-0 at 126 for the Thunderbolts.

Versatile middle: December is the time when most coaches experiment with lineups.

Lemont coach John St. Clair has a range of options at the heart of his order.

Just looking at 145, he has two wrestlers ranked in the top five with Grant LaDuke and Kyle Zator.

LaDuke finished third in the state last season in Class 2A. He’s currently ranked No. 2 by the Illinois Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association.

Zator is ranked No. 5 at the same weight class.

Additionally, the emergence of AJ Heeg at 138 has allowed Kyle Schickel, who finished second in the state at 138 last season, to move up to 145.

In the DeKalb Invitational, Lemont went 5-1 and finished second in its bracket against Oak Park-River Forest.

Heeg, LaDuke and Zator each finished 6-0. Schickel went 5-1.

Patrick Z. McGavin is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.

Barbs hand off Flavin title, find excitement in dual competition

Barbs drop two of three in top pool Saturday; Spartans finish with win, go 3-3 over weekend

Article Source Written By: Daily Chronicle – KALEB CARTER Email Follow

Photo By: Mary Beth Nolan

DeKALB – For Austin Martin, competing in the Don Flavin dual team wrestling tournament for the first time and battling in front of a raucous field house environment resonated with the DeKalb 113-pound freshman wrestler.

“It’s fun seeing all the people in the stands and getting them to watch you and scream and shout. It’s fun,” Martin said. “It’s a cool interaction.”

The Barbs handed Illinois Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association 11th-ranked Oak Park and River Forest a 40-25 loss to start the day Saturday, but DeKalb lost its other duals to out-of state powers Mukwonago (41-37) of Wisconsin and Brownsburg (31-25) of Indiana. Mukwonago went on to win the Flavin title.

One big win against OPRF came from Bradley Gillum at 160 pounds, who defeated IWCOA No. 2 ranked Joe Chapman, 2-0. Martin earned a 3-2 win, with a third-period takedown providing the difference in his victory.

“I knew that kid [Chapman] was good,” Gillum said. “He’s one of the few names that I recognized. I knew I need to wrestle smart, wrestle hard and keep my energy going the whole match.”

The two were tied after Gillum rode out Chapman in the second period, and after securing takedown in the third, again rode out Chapman.

Gillum later went on to defeat Brownburg’s Peyton Asbury, Indiana’s fifth-ranked wrestler, with a 3-1 decision after another third-period takedown.

“We just need to come together as a team,” Gillum said. “People would mess up, do small things wrong that cost big team points, but it would be fine if that was like individual, but when you come together as a team, we need to learn how to come together and keep the motivation going.”

Other Barbs defeating ranked wrestlers included Ben Aranda (106), Danny Curran (120), Damien Lopez (152), Michael Clayton (170) and Tucker Ikens (195). Curran went 6-0 with three wins by fall, two by major decision and a tech fall. Aranda went 5-1 over the weekend with four falls. Lopez was 5-0 in contested matches over the weekend.

“We split seven matches and seven matches with Mukwango and [Brownsburg] Indiana, the best that Wisconsin and Indiana have,” DeKalb coach Sam Hiatt said. “It came down to bonus points. We just got pinned too much, especially in the last one, but our kids wrestled hard, and I’m proud of them.”

Sycamore ended the day with a 36-33 win over Hinsdale Central after losing to St. Charles East, 45-31, and Aurora Christian, 52-18.

Zack Crawford helped start a run of four Spartans wins in five matches against Hinsdale Central, pulling out a 3-1 decision.

“Zack Crawford getting that takedown to change that decision, end up winning that, it was 1-1 in the third, that’s a huge match,” Sycamore coach Alex Nelson said.

Brayden Peet at 145 pounds, Gus Cambier (152) and Colton Berg (160) recorded consecutive pins to lead the Spartans to the win.

“When our hammers [have] tough matches, they can pick up the slack for us and score some big bonus points in matches when we need them to,” Spartans senior 170-pounder Zak Kozumplik said.

After Sycamore went 1-2 Saturday and 3-3 overall over the weekend, Kozumplik, Class 3A’s fifth-ranked wrestler according to the IWCOA, said the Spartans are looking forward to getting right back to work.

“It gives us some good feedback on how much more work we have to do, as well as in the practice room, coming up before we get to our regional, sectionals, state,” Kozumplik said.

For the Barbs, who were coming off a Flavin title last season, Saturday proved to be a reminder of what the Barbs can address in the practice room to get better at.

“All these good teams give us challenges,” Danny Curran said. “Make us better every day, either in the mat room because we’re working on stuff, but we can get better than wrestling mediocre teams and feeling like we’re on top of the world that when a good team comes, you don’t know what to do.”

A beat up DeKalb team, fighting off sickness from several wrestlers, will take time to get healthy before wrestling in the Cheesehead Invitational in Kaukauna, Wisconsin, on Friday and Saturday.

In the meantime, Martin treated the weekend as a learning experience. He said that not only did he pick up new techniques from strong opponents, but also that patience was an important thing for him to build.

“Patience is something that I’ve needed to learn,” Martin said. “I’m getting to the point to where I’m getting to where I need to be with patience.”

Rocky grad Overton has come a long way on mat

Article Source Written by: Quad City Times – Jeff Wendland Jan 1, 2020 Updated Jan 1, 2020

Photo: Rock Island graduate Tyree Overton, now at St. Cloud State, is 7-1 in his senior season and seven wins shy of 100 for his career. He was a two-time Junior College All-American at Lincoln College.
-St. Cloud State University

There were days at the end of his high school wrestling career that Rock Island graduate Tyree Overton thought his days on the mat were over.

An injury his senior year kept Overton from making it to the Illinois High School Association state finals and he had very little interest from colleges around the nation.

Overton is sure glad he didn’t give up.

Midway through his redshirt senior season at St. Cloud State, Overton is en route to wrapping up a stellar college wrestling career.

“The best I did in high school was a state alternate my senior year,” Overton said. “I was ranked as high as fourth or fifth in the state but I was in a tough bracket in sectionals and I was injured with a partially torn meniscus.

“I knew I still wanted to wrestle, and I knew I was going to have to take the hard way. I had two junior college offers and I finally picked Lincoln.”

At Lincoln, Overton captured a pair of Junior College All-American finishes and caught the eye of the St. Cloud coaching staff. Overton believes his career took off 150 or so miles away from home.

“It was kind of out in the middle of nowhere and that forced me to concentrate and work hard every day,” he said. “I stayed focused and I had two great coaches in my two years. Nothing against my Rocky coaches, they were great, but these guys pushed me to another level.

“I had Dave Klemm, who was an alternate in the Olympics the year the USA boycotted, and then I had Daryl Thomas who was ranked really high as a wrestler at the University of Illinois.

“They really stayed on me and it always felt like it was Division I room. They got our wrestlers ready for the next level. I ended up being a two-time All-American, taking eighth in the nation as a freshman and third as a sophomore.”

Overton saw his biggest jump from his first season to the second when he learned a lot more about being an elite college wrestler.

“That first year as a freshman, I needed to get my mindset together,” Overton said. “I didn’t handle my weight very well. I bumped up a weight the next year and that’s when it became something big for me and my future.

“I chose St. Cloud State because I knew they were good and they would push me further. They have won four of the last five NCAA Division II national championships.”

Following his third-place finish, he understood more about winning. Now that he is at St. Cloud, he knows what winning is all about. The Huskies have not lost a conference meet since 2010.

Overton fell just shy of making the NCAA Division II All-America list, again stymied by that same knee.

“I completely tore the meniscus off,” Overton said. “The doctors told me I needed surgery and to not wrestle, but I did and I made it to the nationals and was one win from making the All-American match.”

The injury and rehab helped Overton make a decision to redshirt last school year where he was able to put in a lot of school work to catch up for some credits that did not transfer from Lincoln to St. Cloud State.

He still wrestled unattached and went 15-1, winning five tournaments during the season. He is back healthy, wrestling at 184 pounds and off to a great senior start.

“I’m 7-1 so far this season and currently ranked No. 3 in the nation,” he said. “My only loss is to a nationally-ranked D-1 guy from Northern Iowa and I beat the top-ranked guy in D-II earlier this year.

“I’m at 93 college wins right now and getting to 100 would mean a lot. Having gone from a guy who didn’t even qualify for a state meet in high school to having 100 college wins is amazing.”

The trip from Rock Island to Lincoln to St. Cloud has certainly been worth it.

“There were times when I wondered if I was good enough to wrestle at any college,” he said. “Now, to be wrestling for the best Division II team in the nation says something.

“I think it was believing and having great coaches who pushed me to the next level. To think, I didn’t even start wrestling until I was a freshman at Rocky and never even took it serious until I was a sophomore. This is pretty good.”

Mount Carmel’s Noah Mis continues to work for junior achievement

‘I am not ever going to get complacent’

Article Source

Written By PATRICK Z. MCGAVIN – DAILY SOUTHTOWN |JAN 02, 2020 | 12:44 PM

Photo: Mount Carmel’s Noah Mis, left, tries to escape at 126 pounds during the Class 3A dual-team state quarterfinals against Warren at the State Farm Center in Champaign on Friday, Feb. 15, 2019. (Rob Dicker / Daily Southtown)

After finishing fifth in the state last season at 126 pounds, Mount Carmel junior Noah Mis was undeterred by the moment.

Instead, it set the wheels in motion.

“That experience told me that I could win the state title this year,” Mis said. “My mentality right now is just to go out and not have any close matches.”

Mis finished with a 31-12 record as a sophomore, and his career has been marked by vast improvement. He qualified for state at 113 as a freshman.

He hasn’t missed a beat this season. Mis (16-3) is the top-ranked wrestler at 132 in Class 3A by the Illinois Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association.

Mis’ highlight thus far has been winning the 132-pound championship at the prestigious Al Dvorak Invitational in Loves Park.

“Our schedule is very tough, but I love the competition,” Mis said. “I know that I am good enough to compete with kids at the highest level.”

He performs with an abandon and fearlessness, according to Mount Carmel coach Alex Tsirtsis.

“He is an extremely hard-working kid who has constant motion and attacks throughout the entire match,” Tsirtsis said. “As a coach, he does exactly what you want your wrestlers to do. He is always looking to score offensively and defensively.”

Like Tsirtsis and individual defending state champion Colton Drousias (120), Mis has roots in Indiana. He lives in Griffith.

“I already knew a couple of the kids at Mount Carmel like Colton, and my coach had also coached me when I was younger,” Mis said.

Mis’ older brother David played soccer for the Caravan. Wrestling, however, was always Noah’s preferred sport. He started at age 5.

Mis was subject to bullying when he was younger, and his parents thought wrestling would be a good route to learn how to defend himself.

His aggressive and fast style has accelerated his development. Even as he has moved up weight classes, Mis has not sacrificed his combination of speed, power and strength.

“I think the big difference from the past is that I am more confident,” Mis said. “In the past, I was a bit cautious because I was a younger kid. Now during my matches, I just tell myself to stay calm.”

His reputation also precedes him. His standout performance has made him the standard by which other wrestlers in his weight class are judged.

Knowing that only fuels his confidence.

“I am not ever going to get complacent,” he said. “There many other kids chasing me for that No. 1 spot, and the important thing for me is to work hard and keep getting better.”

A sport that he began in part to establish his own identity and develop his competitive instincts has become his primary signature.

“I have always been a good kid,” Mis said. “When people don’t feel you can do something and you prove them wrong, that is a great feeling.”

Patrick Z. McGavin is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.