Feature Stories

The IHSA wrestling clinicians will again be hosting Rules Review Nights the week of IHSA Regionals (February 3-6). There will be 8 in-person meetings and 2 online meetings. Below is a list of that schedule and the Microsoft PowerPoint you can view/download prior to. This PowerPoint will also be displayed and used as a framework for discussion during the meetings.

Visit https://iwcoa.net/officials/ to view and download other resources such as 2020 Rules Review NFHS PDF Handouts, Weigh-in Checklists, Tournament Penalty Tracking Sheets, Officials Reference Cards, and more!

Monday 2/3/2020
6:00pm ROCK FALLS HIGH SCHOOL
7:00pm LOCKPORT HIGH SCHOOL
6:30pm MCHENRY EAST HIGH SCHOOL – (ROOM 400)
6:30pm DE LASALLE HIGH SCHOOL
6:30pm HINSDALE CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL – (ROOM 124 – ENTER DOOR OF OFF GRANT STREET)

Tuesday 2/4/2020 ON-LINE MEETING 6:30pm (Call-in Info Provided Below)

Wednesday 2/5/2020
6:30pm 710 N. JEFFERSON ST. LINCOLN IL
6:30pm VANDALIA HIGH SCHOOL – (ENTER DOOR #6)
6:30pm OSWEGO HIGH SCHOOL – (ENTER DOOR #11)

Thursday 2/6/2020 ON-LINE MEETING 7:30pm (Call-in Info Provided Below)

Call-in Information for Tuesday on-line meeting:

Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/5110267463

Meeting ID: 511 026 7463

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Meeting ID: 511 026 7463
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Call-in Information for Thursday on-line meeting:

Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/845106428?pwd=cWtwUzhmQjVTaVNCVFY4b1VRaW9GQT09

Meeting ID: 845 106 428

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+19292056099,,845106428# US (New York)
+16699006833,,845106428# US (San Jose)

Dial by your location
+1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
Meeting ID: 845 106 428
Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/abnVda8OFk

Nine teams, seven from other states, will compete in the Beat the Streets Brawl Saturday at Oak Park-River Forest.

Montini is one of eight visiting teams. The other seven are tops in their respective states. Orlando (Fla.) Lake Highland Prep and Oradell (N.J.) Bergen Catholic return to the field for the second straight year. Newcomers include Oklahoma powers Tuttle and Broken Arrow, Liberty (Mo.) and Fort Dodge (Iowa).

Lake Highland Prep went 3-0 in this event a year ago. Four rounds of dual meets will be contested starting at 10 a.m.

Fresh off its victory in the star-studded Princeton Tournament last week, Dakota, which rose to the No. 2 spot in the 1A team rankings on iwcoa.net, continues its January schedule gauntlet by taking on the No. 1 teams in two different classifications on back-to-back nights.

On Thursday, coach Pete Alber’s Indians travel to West Carroll for a double dual in which they face defending state champion Lena-Winslow/Stockton in a No. 1-vs.-No. 2 showdown. Just 24 hours later, Dakota faces the 3A No. 1, Montini, in another double dual at Rockton Hononegah.

The Broncos will be coming off a big match of their own. They travel to DeKalb to take on the No. 3 Barbs on Wednesday before finishing the week with the Beat the Streets event. It’s one of two Wednesday dual meets matching ranked teams. In 2A, No. 15 Rock Island visits No. 10 LaSalle-Peru.

In addition to the Dakota/LWS showdown Thursday, north suburban powers Marian Central Catholic and Antioch square off as part of a double dual at Lakes.  They’re two of the top four teams in the 2A classification. Like Dakota, the Hurricanes also have huge duals on back-to-back nights. Marian Central travels to Huntley to meet the Red Raiders, No. 8 in 3A, on Friday.

Two locations to feature four ranked teams Saturday

There’s plenty of other activity in addition to the Beat the Streets event on Saturday. Two other Chicago-area events will have four 3A Top 25 teams on the premises.

The Neuqua Valley Duals includes No. 4 Lockport, No. 7 Glenbard North, No. 10 Barrington and No. 22 Bolingbrook in a field that also includes Plainfield Central, Metea Valley, Bradley-Bourbonnais and the host Wildcats.

Libertyville hosts the annual quad with DeKalb, Conant and Lyons Township, and for the first time in four seasons, all four teams are in the Top 25. The Lions could earn program win No. 1,000, depending on what happens in the next few days.

Finally, Stevenson hosts Huntley, Deerfield and Wauconda in a quad that includes three ranked teams, two from 3A.

The Chicago Public Schools tournament takes place this weekend, as a well as a pair of conference mega-dual events. Many of the best 1A teams in central Illinois will be competing in the Illini Central Duals Friday and Saturday at Pontiac. On Monday, the East Suburban Catholic Conference mega-duals take place at Carmel.

Written By: Rob Sherrill

Few programs have the longevity or the sustained success to claim 1,000 dual-meet wins. Lyons Township could soon be the next school to reach that magic number.

After sweeping a quad meet Dec. 14 with wins over Marist, Lincoln-Way Central and Fenwick, coach Griff Powell’s Lions improved to 8-3 this season. The LaGrange program ticked up to 997 wins, just three short of the 1,000 mark.

The No. 20 Lions haven’t wrestled a dual meet since that day, having competed in three straight tournaments at Hinsdale Central, Wheaton-Warrenville South and in Wisconsin at the Cheesehead. Their schedule consists only of duals the rest of the season, however, starting with West Suburban Silver conference matches Friday at Proviso West and Jan. 17 at Downers Grove North. Should they win those two, win No. 1,000 could come the next day at Libertyville in their annual quad against Conant, DeKalb and the host Wildcats.

The countdown continues.

Week 7 of the IWCOA State Wrestling Rankings have been released.

Click the buttons below or visit https://iwcoa.net/rankings/

Breaking News: Rob Sherrill and the IWCOA are teaming up to release the first ever – IWCOA Girls State Wrestling Rankings! We plan to release 3 ranking issues with the first arriving between January 15-18. Girls/Coaches should complete the “Rankings Survey Form” by clicking the button below.  The form should be completed by Friday, January 10, 2020.

Rob Sherrill

A native of Chicago’s south suburbs, Rob Sherrill first covered wrestling for the Star Newspapers in 1978. He gradually expanded his focus statewide, starting The Grappler in 1981. He joined the Chicago Sun-Times in 1983, covering wrestling and other high school sports for the paper for 12 years. That same year, he started The Illinois Best Weekly, the state’s first weekly statewide rankings publication, which continues to this day. He also assists the state’s Web site, illinoismatmen.com, in producing rankings and other content. The voice of the Class 3A state tournament on the IHSA-TV network, Sherrill was a color analyst for the first television broadcast of the state tournament in 1987, and continued in that role for more than a decade.

In 1992, Sherrill initiated the first national Super 25 Wrestling Teams run by USA Today, and produced the Super 25 for the national newspaper for six seasons. He has been the National High School Editor for WIN magazine since 1997.

A resident of Nashville, Tenn. since 1997, Sherrill is a three-time recipient of the Illinois Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association (IWCOA) Newsperson of the Year award, one of many local, state and national awards he has received. He was inducted into the IWCOA Hall of Fame in 2006.

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.”

Rankings have been posted to the Rankings Page . View them HERE