Tigers Wrestle Very Well, Defeat Alton And Mascoutah In Triangular Meet, Redbirds Win Over Indians In Third Meet  

EDWARDSVILLE - The Edwardsville High wrestling team, coming off a solid performance at the Cheesehead Invitational Tournament in Wisconsin over the weekend, wrestled very well as the Tigers defeated Alton 65-12 and Mascoutah 72-6 in a triangular meet held on Thursday evening at Warren "Babe" Stahlhut Arena at the Jon Davis Wrestling Center.

The Redbirds went on to defeat the Indians in the third meet 53-30 to allow Alton to gain a split of the meets.

The Tigers had many good individual performances in their meets as Edwardsville continues their march towards their 11th consecutive Southwestern Conference championship.

"The kids wrestled well," said Edwardsville head coach Jon Wagner. "I thought we had some good losses. Noah Harper competed hard as did Makonnen Simmons at 138 (pounds). Nathan Hollis at 132 wrestled a complete match. We're getting a few kids back in the line up for various reasons, and we hope to keep progressing."

Alton head coach Eric Roberson is currently in COVID-19 quarantine and couldn't coach the team in the meet. In a phone interview, Roberson felt his wrestlers are doing well so far this season.

"Our team is competing well this season," Roberson said, "and they have shown a strong work ethic. We are fairly young, but also have a few wrestlers with a lot of experience mixed in with that youth."

The Tigers started off well against the Redbirds at 120 pounds, as Blake Mink won by fall over Aslan Merioles at 1:19 to give Edwardsville a 6-0 lead. Alton tied the meet on wins at 126 by Will Harris over Harper 8-1 and at 138 with Yaveion Freeman defeating Simmons 6-3 to tie the meet at 6-6. The Tigers then went on to win 10 of the last 11 bouts, starting at 145 pounds with a Dylan Gvillo pin of Antione Phillips at 3:06 and a 28 second pin by Drew Landau over Joey Bowman at 152 to give the Tigers an 18-6 lead.

Edwardsville then got three forfeit wins in a row with Ian Kuhne at 160 pounds, Landon Schickendanz at 170 and Nolan Rowe at 182 to extend the lead to 36-6. Evan Holderer then scored a pinfall in the 195-pound match at 1:03, then two more forfeits, to Cliff Seaman at 220 pounds and Patrick Sepanski at 285, gave the Tigers a 54-6 lead. Tyler Perry then took the 106-pound match over Caleb Christner by technical superiority at 5:20 in a 17-2 win that gave Edwardsville a 59-6 lead. Emily Phillips of the Redbirds got a forfeit win at 113 pounds and Hollis scored a pin at 3:11 of the 132-pound match over Antwan Baskin to make the final score 65-12. In an exhibition match after the meet, Simmons pinned Seth Hubbart at 1:43 to complete the meet with the Redbirds.

Against the Indians, the meet started with a double forfeit by both teams at 113 pounds, then Mink at 120 won his second bout of the evening by fall at 28 seconds over Garrison Kramer, then Harper pinned C. Woodworth at 3:13, Hollis received a forfeit at 132 and Simmons pinned Cayden Garner at 23 seconds to give the Tigers a 24-0 lead.

Gvillo got a forfeit at 145 to extend the lead to 30-0, then Landau pinned Kanoa Owens in the 152-pound bout at 31 seconds and Jordan Johnson scored a pin over Tyler Messner at 2:13 of the 160-pound match to extend the lead to 42-0. Mascoutah got their only win at 170 pounds when Logan Will pinned Kuhne at 1:44 to cut the lead to 42-6.

Rowe at 182 pounds and Evan McCormick at 195 received forfeit wins to extend the lead to 54-6, then Seaman pinned Trey Fix in the 220-pound bout at 26 seconds, Sepanski followed suit over Jayden Bleisch at 31 seconds of the 285-pound match and Perry won by forfeit at 106 pounds to make the final score 72-6 for the Tigers. In an exhibition bout at 182 pounds, Hubert Thomas pinned Jacob Rumler at 1:45 to conclude the meet.

The individual results of the Redbirds-Indians meet were not available at press time.

The Tigers host CBC in a dual meet next Thursday at the JDWC at 6 p.m., then host a triangular meet with East St. Louis and Civic Memorial Jan. 27, starting at 5 p.m. The Redbirds are now 2-2 in the Southwestern Conference and wrestle next against Triad and Springfield High in a triangular meet Wednesday night at the Redbirds Nest, starting at 6 p.m., then are at O'Fallon in a SWC dual meet next Thursday night, also starting at 6 p.m. Alton then hosts back-to-back dual meets against Belleville East and Roxana Jan. 26-27, with both meets starting at 6 p.m.

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Dan Brannan also contributed to this story

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