Marmion snares Flavin title

By Chris Walker for the IWCOA

DEKALB – Marmion didn’t win the Don Flavin Invitational last season, but that didn’t stop the Cadets from later winning a state title.

The Cadets have continued to do a whole lot of winning since then as they won the Don Flavin Invitational at DeKalb, sweeping their way to a 6-0 tournament in this dual team tournament on Dec. 29-30, 2025.

Leading the way for the Cadets were Colton Wyller (106), James Morrison (113), Nicholas Garcia (132), Ashton Hobson (150/157), Vinnie Testa (190) and Joey Favia (285) who wrestled to victory in each of their half dozen matches during the team’s six dual meets over two days.

“Yeah, they wrestled tough, especially that second day, competed hard,” Marmion coach Anthony Cirrincione said. “We’re still one piece away from being at full strength, but we’re in a good spot and a lot better than last year when we weren’t healthy until regionals.”

This latest team victory follows similar success this season for Marmion with titles also at the Cadet Classic as well as the Dan Gable Donnybrook.

Marmion

Marmion won its first Flavin title since 2022. The Cadets finished in second place last year behind Detroit Catholic Central but when all was said and done at the IHSA Class 3A state finals, the Cadets were state dual team champions for the first time in program history.

Their victory in DeKalb, after two long days of wrestling on Monday and Tuesday is another step toward the Aurora school’s hope of defending its team title.

“Well, to be honest, we thought we would be hard pressed to be in a position better than we were last year and we’re older and wiser at a lot of weights and only graduating the three contributing seniors,” Cirrincione said. “They’re getting after it and showing they are a team.”

In Marmion’s 33-28 win over IC Prep, IC Prep’s Joey Pontrelli scored a 21-7 major against Alex Korpan to get the dual started at 165 and Brody Kelly followed with a quick pin over Daniel Skura. But the Cadets would win eight of the next 11 matches, including at 132, before forfeiting at 157 with the victory already locked up, leading 33-22.

One of the premier battles was at 132, where the Class 2A top ranked wrestler (Max Cumbee) met the 3A’s best (Nicholas Garcia). Garcia scored a 2-1 tiebreaker win.

In their preceding duals, top-ranked Marmion overwhelmed no. 3 ranked Montini, 49-13, winning 11 matches, getting a pair of pins as well as a couple wins due to injuries to AJ Tack (190) and Chris Navarro (150). Marmion opened Tuesday’s action in the Champion’s Pool with a 42-24 victory over Kaukana, Wisc.

On Monday, the Cadets began their journey towards a title with a 61-13 win over Lyons. They followed that with a 56-12 win over Glenwood, ranked 3rd in Class 2A, before a 55-18 win against St. Charles East, the fourth ranked team in Class 3A.

Top performers for the Cadets included Colton Wyller (6-0 at 106), James Morrison (6-0 at 113), Nicholas Garcia (6-0 at 132), Ashton Hobson (6-0 at 150/157), Vinnie Testa (6-0 at 190) and Joey Favia (6-0 at 285) as those six wrestlers went a combined 36-0.

Other top finishers for the Cadets were Aidan McClure (5-1, at 126), Demetrios Carrera (5-1 at 138) and Logan Conover (5-1, at 144).

“On the first day we made an assessment as the coaches that the boys hear a lot of voices at the same time and it’s not always the same thing,” Cirrincione said. “Sparty Chino, one of the assistant coaches, said we need to look at how we did today as a coaching staff and we figured we’d only wrestled one dual against Lockport the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. We need to regroup the kids so they need to hear one voice and we kind of went back to our old ways. We had a driver and passenger driving in the front seat. Day two we made an adjustment as a staff and it was good for us.”

Last season, the Cadets defeated Montini and IC Prep in the Champion’s Pool but fell to 2024 Flavin champ, Detroit Catholic Central.

IC Catholic Prep

Last year, IC Catholic earned a spot in the Champion’s Pool as well, but took fourth place. This time, the Knights were the runner-up to Marmion. Last year here, IC Prep dropped a 37-30 decision to Marmion.

The Knights beat Montini (42-24) and Kaukana, Wisc. (51-18) to set the stage for an invitational-deciding dual against Marmion.

Dominic Pasquale (3-0 at 126), Frank Nitti (6-0 at 144) and Brody Kelly (5-0 at 175) went undefeated. Also leading the Knights were Kannon Judycki (5-1 at 120), Aidan Arnett (5-1 at 157/165), Mike Bird (4-1 at 113) and Foley Calcagno (4-1 at 215).

IC Catholic rolled into the Champion’s Pool with dominating wins in the Rich Harvey Bracket, including against Moline (55-20), Washington (50-16) and Yorkville (60-15).

Montini

Ranked 2nd in Class 3A, the Broncos may be one of the most talented teams in the state, but they still had the daunting task of facing the top-ranked teams in 2A and 3A back-to-back in the Champion’s Pool.

They opened action on Tuesday afternoon with a 48-24 loss to IC Prep, the top ranked team in Class 2A, followed by a 49-13 loss to Marmion, the top ranked team in Class 3A. They concluded their run in the tournament with a rare third-straight defeat to Kaukana (48-17).

Montini had earned its berth into the top bracket after beating Glenbard East (66-12), West Aurora (47-27) and Grant (48-24)

Allen Woo (6-0 at 120) and Bobby Ruscitti (6-0 at 126) led the Broncos while Erik Klichurov (5-1 at 113) was the only other Montini wrestler besides Ben Evenson (1-1 at 215) to not suffer more than a single defeat.

Joliet Catholic Academy

Joliet Catholic Academy won the Gold Pool with victories over St. Charles East (36-25), Yorkville (57-15) and Grant (54-12).

Leading the way for the Hilltoppers were Adante Washington (6-0 at 144/150), Nolan Vogel (6-0 at 165) and Lukas Foster (5-0 at 126/132).

Kane Robles (5-1 at 106), Colton Schultz (5-1 at 113), Jason Hampton (5-1 at 138/132) and Daniel Dalach (5-1 at 285) also were quite successful.

“We left a better team than when we entered,” Joliet Catholic Academy coach Ryan Cumbee said. “Mission accomplished. 30 days until the state series-the only time results mean anything.”

St. Charles East

The Saints bounced back from the loss to Joliet Catholic Academy to beat Grant (34-25) and Yorkville (38-22) to take second place in the Gold Pool.

Dom Munaretto (6-0 at 120) and Cooper Murray (6-0 at 215/285) won all of their matches while Kaden Potter (126), Declan Sons (132), Jayden Hernandez (138) Isaac Lenard (157/150) and Gavin Woodmancy (157/150) each went 4-2.

Yorkville

The Foxes opened with a tight victory over Naperville Central (38-12) and got past Barrington (37-25) before being humbled by top-ranked 2A IC Prep (60-15) to conclude their first day of action.

A tough loss to Grant wasn’t how the Foxes were hoping to begin play in the Gold Cup, but that loss (36-32) was the continuation of what ultimately would turn into a four-game dual match slide.

“It was a tough second day and we knew we were going to have a tough three matches,” Foxes coach Jake Oster said. “We were missing our 215 (Avery Lane who went 2-1 on Monday) who was out for the day at a funeral. And we were planning another guy at 190 and he ended up having emergency appendix surgery so we bumped guys around. So we didn’t have that going into the dual against Grant and let some slip in some of the matches where we could’ve sealed it off with a couple of wins. Just came up short and they (Grant) had two hammers at the end so we knew that the last two weights we had to be up pretty good and lost right before that and it put a damper on our chances.”

The Foxes dropped a 57-15 decision to Joliet Catholic Academy, ranked no. 2 in Class 3A, and closed the tournament with a 38-22 loss to St. Charles East.

Donovan Rosauer (6-0 at 150/157) was unblemished to lead the Foxes.

Caleb Viscogliosi (3-1 at 175/190), Donncha Souza (3-1 at 150/157) and Xavion Ulloa (3-1 at 285) also enjoyed success in their respective matches for Yorkville.

“It’s a long two days and we had six solid duals so our guys were feeling it,” Oster said. “Some were feeling sorry for themselves, some guys went 0-6 and probably haven’t gone 0-6 before which speaks volumes about the toughness of this tournament and how mentally tough you’ve got to be in something like this. It shows where we got to be better. It’s a good thing to have in the middle of the year.”

Grant

Grant got past Yorkville (36-12) for its lone victory during Tuesday’s final day of competition. Grant could not sustain that success, dropping its final two duals to St. Charles East (34-25) and Joliet Catholic Academy (54-12).

The Bulldogs picked up wins in Monday’s Wayne Miller Bracket over Hersey (49-28) and Lincoln-Way West (39-30) before falling to Montini (48-24) in the bracket’s first-place match.

Erik Rodriguez (6-0 at 144/150) and Vince Jasinski (6-0 at 144/150) didn’t lose to lead the Bulldogs. Brady Myatt (4-2 at 113), Larry Quirk (4-2 at 113) and Casey Gipson (4-2 at 190/215) also delivered strong performances.

Providence Catholic

Providence Catholic defeated Glenbard West (47-21) in its first dual in the Silver Pool. The Celtics followed with wins over Washington (48-26) and Lincoln-Way West (51-17) to win the pool.

Christian Corcoran (6-0 at 113), Nate Ortiz (6-0 at 120) and Justus Heeg (6-0 at 157) swept their way to victories in all of Providence’s duals while Tommy Banas (5-1 at 138), Luke Banas (5-1 at 144) and Ameer Khalil (5-1 at 175/190) also had strong tournaments.

Barrington

In the Bronze Pool, Barrington survived Sandburg (37-35) and Glenwood (37-36) back-to-back after opening with a win over West Aurora (47-30).

The Broncos crushed Pewaukee, Wisc., 62-12 to open the tournament, but dropped tighter matches to Yorkville (37-25) and Washington (38-34).

Kaleb Pratt (6-0 at 120/126), Jimmy Whitaker (6-0 at 144/150), Matthew Blanke (4-0 at 126/120) and Ryan Dorn (6-0 at 132/138) enjoyed their final tournament of 2025 with victory after victory after victory. Sam Cushman (5-1 at 175/190) also found a great deal of success in DeKalb.

Other winners included Lincoln-Way East in Pool A, Glenbard North in Pool B, Lyons in Pool C and Prospect in Pool D.

Top performers for the Griffins were Kaidreaus Richardson (6-0 at 150), Colton Zvonar (4-0 at 190) and Gage LaDere (4-0 at 285).

Marco Rafael (4-1 at 157) paced the Panthers who received 4-2 records from Dominic Melody (106), Roman Barracca (113), Lukas Thompson (120), Vannak Khiev (126), Julian Guerra (132) Trey Thompson (138) and Tyler Hvorick (215).

Griff Powell (6-0 at 138) led Lyons. Luca Ligammari (106), Joey Colantuono (126), Cornell Fennessee (165), Anthony Johnson (175), Luke Wilhelm (190) and Jimmy Hillmann (285) all went 4-2.

James Brouilette (6-0 at 285), Brock Wrede (5-0 at 190/215) and Gavin Payne (5-0 at 165) didn’t suffer any defeats for Prospect. Joseph Quirk (5-1 at 175/190) and Owen Dewey (4-1 at 215) also performed well.

Statistics of note

Luxemburg-Casco’s Logan Ellwanger and Providence Catholic’s Justus Heeg tied for the most team points with 36, while Minooka’s Maddux Tindal and West Aurora’s Marcus Quintana each had 35 points. Luxemburg-Casco’s Carson Neubert, St. Charles East’s Dom Munaretto, Joliet Catholic Academy’s Nolan Vogel, Barrington’s Kaleb Pratt and Prospect’s James Brouilette each had 34 points. Glenbard West’s Aidan Ortega, Washington’s Josh Hoffer, Grant’s Vince Jasinski, Marmion’s Vinnie Testa, Hersey’s Oleksandr Havrylkiv and Barrington’s Jimmy Whitaker all had 33 points.

Lincoln-Way West’s Brady Glynn recorded five technical falls, joining Naperville Central’s Paul Peradotti, for most in the tournament.

Brouilette, Tindal, Ellwanger, Hoffer and Quintana were the five wrestlers who registered five victories by fall. Whitaker accomplished the feat in the lest amount of time, besting TInfal (5:13 to 5:36).

Luxemburg-Casco and Glenbard North had 26 pins each collectively as a team to lead the 32-team field, while Marmion had 25, Providence had 23 and Barrington, Kaukana and Lyons each had 21.

Championship meet in Champion’s Pool of Don Flavin Dual Team Invitational Tournament

Marmion 33, IC Prep 28

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