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BURLINGTON — For the second tournament in a row, Sycamore freshman Cooper Bode reversed a regular season loss to end up with a postseason championship.
Last time it was in the Interstate 8 tournament. This time, he knocked off Kaneland’s Cole Olsen to claim the 170-pound title and help the Spartans win the Class 2A Burlington Central Regional on Saturday.
“I feel like it’s the right time to get going and that’s what I’m doing,” Bode said. “It’s big. It shows improvement mentally and physically and makes me feel a lot better.”
Bode, Zack Crawford and Gable Carrick won titles for the Spartans to highlight nine sectional qualifiers. Kaneland got titles from Caden Grabowski and Nate Diaz among their seven qualifiers as the Spartans edged the Knights for the team title, 176-154.
Aurora Christian took third with 139, Morris was fifth with 93 and Burlington Central was sixth with 89.5.
Sycamore coach Randy Culton said it was nice to see his team break through after narrowly missing a conference title, both in the regular season and in the tournament.
“I knew once we got healthy, got everybody wrestling, and at their weights they needed to be we could compete with anybody,” Culton said. “We’ve got a lot of people thrilled. I saw a lot of good things from our wrestlers today.”
The Spartans qualified for the 2A Sycamore Dual Team Sectional later this month, while the individual qualifiers will head to the Rochelle Sectional next week.
Culton said he was impressed with a lot of individual performances, including Jaden Cochran taking second at 145 despite entering the tournament unseeded. He also said he liked the way Gus Cambier competed in a 7-1 loss against Aurora Christian’s Tay Silva, who’s ranked second in the state. He said Cambier knows what it takes to get a win next time should they meet against at 152.
Michael Olson (second at 106), Tyler Lockhart (second at 113), Ethan Bode (third at 220) and Lincoln Cooley (second at 285) also advanced to sectionals for Sycamore.
For Kaneland, Grabowski won a wild contest at 132 against Crystal Lake South’s Zyon Shlee to win the title. After a high scoring first two periods, Grabowski seemed like he was going to keep Schlee on his back for the entirety of the third period. But Schlee got a reverse with 30 seconds left to take a 12-11 lead.
Grabowski, however, got a reverse 10 seconds later to claim the win.
“To be honest my regional champ match was a little difficult but getting to that point was a little bit easier than most years,” Grabowski said. “I’ve been dealing with a sickness for the last three days-ish, and I’ve wrestled that guy before, pinned him in the second period So I was confident going in, but back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The last 30 seconds were make it or break it.”
Kamron Scholl (second at 120), Alex Gochis (second at 126), Christian Duffing (third at 152), Cole Olsen (second at 170) and Max Pietak (second at 195) will also advance to Rochelle for the Knights.
In addition to Phillips, David Wyruchowski (106), Austin Lee (120) Cole McGuire (132) qualified for Central, with each taking third.
“That’s one of the things we tell our kids - wrestle six minutes, wrestled hard and good things will happen,” Rockets coach VInce Govea said. “David was a little banged up during the week, but I told him if you end up winning you ain’t gonna feel the pain.”
Aurora Christian had five champions but will send seven wrestlers to the sectional round next week. Deven Casey (113), John Vazquez (120), Pat Mullen (138), Silva and Braden Hunter (285) won titles, with Adan Rocha (160) and Dominic Savini (182) taking second.
Owen Sater (106) and Tyler Semlar won titles for Morris, with Semlar needing just 19 seconds for a pin to claim with title over Cochran at 145. Kazden Kliner took second for Morris to qualify for Rochelle next week.