It has been a while since Joliet West has lost a Southwest Prairie Conference East dual wrestling meet.

On Wednesday, the Tigers beat Plainfield South 52-19 to rack up their 26th straight SPC East win.

The meet started at 106 pounds, and the first three West wrestlers - Casey Koerner at 106, Cash Ocampo at 113 and Nick Murdock at 120 - all played the take-them-down, let-them-up game with their opponents.

Koerner won by technical fall, 20-2, over Alan Cortez, Ocampo held a 19-6 lead over Quan Hamilton before pinning him at the 4:31 mark and Murdock was ahead 13-2 before he pinned Islom Ismanaliev at the 1:49 mark.

Jacob Crandall decided to do it differently.

Crandall only took down Jose Rivas, Jr. once in the 126-pound bout. He then scored four points on a near fall before winning by fall in 1:04 to put his team ahead 23-0.

“I prefer to work on top,” Crandall said. “Sometimes I let them back up, but most of the time I want to continue to stay on top and work that way. I’d rather get a pin than a technical fall.

“We have a good mix of veterans and younger guys. I am a senior, so I am trying to help the younger guys get used to the speed and strength of varsity wrestling. We have good depth on this team and we are looking pretty good right now.”

Plainfield South, though, wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

Nathan Cameron scored the first win of the night for the Cougars, scoring a reversal with 28 seconds left in the third period to score a 9-8 win over Malaki Lancaster in a back-and-forth match at 132. Shawn Volf followed with a 12-1 major decision over Giovanni Baker to pull the Cougars to within 23-7, and Kyle McCormick beat Kevin Lozano 16-8 at 144 to make it 23-10.

Cohen Weber got things moving back in the Tigers’ direction with a pin over Kayden Palmer in 1:03 at 150 before teammate Israel Booth pinned Julian Rosales in 2:26 at 157 for a 35-10 West lead. The lead moved to 41-10 after Tristan Radeke pinned Erik Schmidt in 2:52 at 165. At 175, West’s Aiden Brown pinned Julius Pierscionek in 3:08.

At 190, South’s Caden Pierceall pinned James Koulis in 2:48 to make it 46-16, and teammate Mason Bucon beat Jacob Tyderek 3-0 at 215 to make it 46-19. West’s Andrew Klobnak capped the night with a pin of Gabriel Hernandez in 51 seconds in the 285-pound bout.

“We did really well top to bottom,” West coach Awais Arain said. “We have a 26-match winning streak in the SPC East and we know teams are going to throw everything and the kitchen sink at us. Hats off to Plainfield South. They really battled us all night.

“We have a team that has a good mix of veterans and newcomers. The veterans are doing what they have to do on the mat, and they are helping the young guys get accustomed to varsity wrestling. We had a couple of guys that dropped a weight class for us tonight and did really well. Cash Ocampo is only in his second year of wrestling and he has shown a lot of growth. Tristan Radeke refocused after the Barrington Tournament and the work he put in on his hand fighting and leg work showed tonight.”

Despite the loss, Plainfield South coach Danny Saracco was happy with how his team performed.

“This is a tough matchup right off the bat,” he said. “We are a very young team with only one senior [Pierceall]. All of the kids are working very hard and I am very proud of them. We are certainly not a finished product by any means. We will keep working our tails off and try to turn the corner. We have to learn how to compete at this level.

“We had some really good matches tonight. Shawn Volf, Kyle McCormick, Caden Pierceall and Mason Bucon all did a great job.”