Wrestling notes: Sandwich’s Ashlyn Strenz determined to blaze her own path in girls state series

Ashlyn Strenz spends most of her season wrestling boys as a member of the Sandwich team.

Last year, she stuck with the Sandwich boys as they reached the dual team state tournament for the first time since 2012.

Now she’s blazing her own path back to Bloomington.

Strenz, a sectional qualifier last season, has opted to compete in the IHSA girls state series, now in its second year, this time around. The first step to state is the Geneseo Sectional Feb. 10.

“Most of the reason I did boys state series was so I could participate in team state. That’s why I did it last year,” said Strenz, a junior. “I felt it would be good to go and compete in the girls series. I haven’t been to a girls state tournament in a while so I thought it would be nice to go.”

Strenz, who competes at the 113-pound boys weight class and will compete at 115 in the girls state series, has posted a 19-13 record at the varsity level this year after winning a regional title and one sectional match as a sophomore. She took fourth place at conference.

“She is a competitor,” Sandwich coach Derek Jones said. “She wrestles hard. I could count on one hand the matches she has had that have ended early. She has the heart of a lioness.”

Strenz, who also runs cross country and track, said she started wrestling when she was 6 or 7 years old. Her mom saw a notice about wrestling on Facebook, asked Ashlyn’s brother if he wanted to try it and didn’t want to leave her out. Strenz has been to IWCOA state a couple times, taking second at that girls state tournament in 2018.

Strenz is currently ranked seventh in the state in her weight class by Illinois Matwomen, but Jones believes her ranking could be skewed by the fact that she did not participate at state last year.

“I think she is going to open some eyes in that community,” he said. “There’s some pretty tough girls, especially at her weight class, but I think she will medal.”

That would be significant for Strenz and significant for the Sandwich program, which had a couple eighth-grade girls last year who didn’t come out as freshmen. Jones is hopeful that a couple more could join the program next year.

“It takes that one team member to set the standard,” Jones said. “Hopefully this will get the ball rolling.”

“It would be super cool to medal,” Strenz said. “I guess I’ve been thinking about it more as state and sectionals. I feel like my mindset has changed. When I run sprints at the end of practice I don’t think of it as a bad thing. It’s improving my mindset so I can go down to state. It keeps me grounded.”

Yorkville Christian postseason ready

Yorkville Christian, which last year crowned the school’s first individual champion (Jackson Gillen) and then won the Class 1A state team title, had a difficult start to this season. The Mustangs wrestled the first couple weeks with five starters out. Without that firepower, a few duals were closer than they would have been. Second-ranked Yorkville Christian lost a December dual to No. 1 Coal City.

But that was then. Yorkville Christian looks ready to go heading into this weekend’s Class 1A regional at Plano.

“We’re where we want to be now,” Mustangs coach Mike Vester said. “We just needed to get healthy. I think we hit our stride and guys are feeling good.”

Yorkville Christian returns to Plano where it won the Reaper Classic in December. The Mustangs got first in the Silver bracket at The Flavin in DeKalb, finished in the top 20 at the 40-team Cheesehead tournament in Wisconsin and took second behind Lockport at the Stagg Invite with all 3A teams.

Aiden Larsen is ranked second at 106 pounds, Ty Edwards is ranked second at 120, Noah Dial is ranked fourth at 132 pounds, Grayson Johnson is ranked eighth at 138, Drew Torza, ranked fifth at 152, will wrestle the state series at 145, Tyler Martinez is ranked second at 160 and Gillen is a returning state champ at 170. Vester said a darkhorse is Jeremiah Loomis, wrestling up two weight classes at 195.

“We would love to see everybody get to sectionals,” Vester said. “I know that’s a tough task with freshmen and guys wrestling out of their weight class. But that’s the message, to get all 14 through.”

Go west, young man

Yorkville, coming off winning the Southwest Prairie Conference championship, will be headed west this weekend to the Class 3A Moline Regional. The Foxes will be looking to repeat as regional champs, and Yorkville coach Jake Oster sounds confident in that happening.

“Team-wise, we are pretty far ahead of the next best team. The next-best team is probably Joliet West,” Oster said. “We are pretty secure team-wise. There are some good teams individual-wise, a couple deep weight classes with four guys ranked or honorable mention.”

Yorkville last year advanced 12 wrestlers to sectionals, and is capable of at least reaching that measure again.

“If we wrestle well we can everyone through,” Oster said. “Some guys might need to wrestle better to get out. They wrestled pretty well at conference. We’ve been stressing scoring bonus points and that showed at conference. We had a lot of major decisions and a lot of technical falls. A lot of guys really distanced themselves.”