Chicago Tribune Chicago Suntimes Premiumpreps.com The Mash
January
8, 2010 BY MIKE CLARK mclark@suntimes.com
Diaz
saves the day for Kelly
Friday’s battle for Public League wrestling supremacy at Kelly couldn’t have
been any closer.
Kelly’s Willie Diaz beat Lane’s Nader Ihmoud 7-4 at
135 pounds in the final bout of the night to forge a 28-28 tie. Kelly won the
match on the first tiebreaker with eight bouts won to Lane’s six.
"It was kind of nerve-wracking because if you lose it, you lose it for
your whole team," Diaz said. "But you just have to (act) like it's
another match and wrestle, no pressure."
Kelly coach Joe Joyce wasn't worried putting his team's fate in Diaz's hands.
"He's one of our senior captains," Joyce said. "We were pretty
comfortable with him in the last match."
The match had plenty of twists and turns, with Lane (9-5) starting fast and
then rallying late after Kelly (12-6) dominated in the middle.
Rey Cardenas put Kelly up 3-0 with the Trojans' first of three one-point
decisions, 8-7 over Ryan Pozniak at 140.
Lane then went up 12-3 on pins by Max Schneider (15-0) at 145 and Chase Wilson
at 152.
Kelly won six of the next seven bouts to take a 25-18 lead. Raul Villapando started the run with a fall at 160. Dennis Flynn
(171) and heavyweight Jonathan Alicea both won
one-pointers, while Oscar Canel (189) and Alberto
Dominguez (103) captured decisions. Alejandro Razo
earned a major decision at 112.
Lane, which had a pin from Pawel
Piotrowicz (215), then won three straight to go ahead
28-25. Nick Jankowski (119) and Hiathem Hamdan (130) sandwiched decisions around Matt Finnegan's
major at 125.
That set the stage for Diaz.
"This was a good indication of where we're at in the city, because we've
been getting our tails whipped a little bit in the suburbs," Joyce said.
"We were looking forward to this one. But we know they may have a better
tournament team than us."
Whether that's the case will be determined in two weeks at
the Public League tournament.
"It'll be a war again," said Joyce, whose team won the city
title last season. "We'll see how it turns out."
"There were three (matches) that in my mind were toss-ups," Lane
coach Mark Miedona said. "They all came out
their way."