Prep Sports

Lockport takes regional title

LOCKPORT – After winning all of their dual meets and facing tough competition throughout their schedule, Lockport’s wrestling team figured to be the favorite over Lincoln-Way West in Saturday’s Class 3A Lockport Regional.

And after capturing three titles, three second-place finishes and three thirds, the Porters had plenty of points to assure them of a sixth-straight regional title.

Kaleb Thompson and Mike Kaminski repeated as regional champions, while Keegan Roberson also won a title to lead the Porters to 190 points, which was 32 better than the runner-up Warriors, a regional champion team a year ago, who also had three champions but qualified seven individuals for next weekend’s Quincy Sectional.

“We had some kids who we were pretty confident with going into the regional and after our seeding meeting, I felt pretty good,” Porters coach Josh Oster said.

“I would guess that other than the state championship team (2016-17) that this is the only team in those six regionals where everyone scored points. Our kids wrestled hard and took care of business.”

Thompson (113 pounds) won by technical fall over Lincoln-Way West’s Tyler Mansker, Kaminski (126) won in the same fashion over Lincoln-Way East’s Ari Zaeske and Roberson (132) won his title match 9-0 over Andrew’s Kyle Silzer in their fourth meeting. Nate Ramsey (138), Joe Oster (152) and Andrew Blackburn-Forst (195) all took second place.

“At Barrington, I beat him 1-0, in a dual he beat me 4-3 and two weeks ago at conference, I beat him 1-0,” Roberson said. “All of the other times I was defense the whole entire match ,but this time I opened up my offense and actually shot. I was sick of the 1-0 matches.”

Lincoln-Way West got titles from Javen Estrada (138), Brock Pfeifer (152) and Payton Geigner (160), who all repeated as regional champions. Estrada won 10-2 over Ramsey, Pfeifer pinned Oster in 3:44 and Geigner pinned Homewood-Flossmoor’s Stacey Terry in 4:26. Garrett Geigner (145), a regional champion last year, lost 8-5 to Marian Catholic’s Kendall Norfleet in the finals.

“In the last couple of weeks, we’ve really had to change our attitudes,” Payton Geigner said. “Everything that’s bad we have to kick it out. Our group of four guys, the four horsemen, really practices hard. Most of the guys I faced today, I’ve faced before, so I know their style.

Lincoln-Way East (124.5) took third, Andrew (114.5) was fourth, H-F (97) took fifth while Providence Catholic (86) edged Lincoln-Way Central (84) for sixth place. The Griffins and Celtics each had five sectional qualifiers, while the Knights had two.

The Griffins received a title from Jake LaMonto (195), who secured his comeback victory with a takedown and nearfall in the final 10 seconds to win 12-8 over Blackburn-Forst.

The Celtics lost their two title matches with top-ranked Ryan Boersma (285) getting pinned in a stunner by Homewood-Flossmoor’s Brian Smith in 0:26 and Billy Meiszner (106) dropping a 3-1 decision to Andrew’s Trevor Silzer. And the Knights fell in their lone title match as Andrew Hesse (182) lost 7-1 to H-F’s Haku Watson-Castro.