Lockport wrestlers surprise at Palatine

PALATINE -- Lockport's High School's Matt Andre and Brad Johnson and Lincoln-Way Central's Joe Souder aren't real well-known names in high school wrestling, but they hope to be.

If the trio of wrestlers continue to wrestle like they did in Monday's opening day of Palatine's Al Berman Holiday Classic, then they will probably get their wish.

They pulled off three of the four biggest upsets of the first day of competition in the 26-team tournament, which also features two other area squads, Minooka and Lemont.

All three also joined 15 other area individuals who moved on to Tuesday's 11 a.m. semifinals. The championship matches are set for 5 p.m.

Thanks in part to the efforts of Johnson and Andre, the Porters took a 135.5-119 lead over Minooka for first place at the end of Day 1.

Hinsdale Central was third with 106 points while Lincoln-Way Central led Hersey 90.5-88 for fourth place. Lemont was tied for ninth with 76 points.

Junior Andre started the series of upsets when he pinned the top seed at 160, Lincoln-Way Central's Kevin Ryan, in 3:50 in an opening-round match.

He followed that effort by recording his third pin of the day, this one coming in 5:38, against United Township's Anthony Angel in the quarterfinals.

"I'm pretty happy, even though I didn't wrestle my best in my last match," said Andre, who was 2-3. "I hit a desperation kind of thing and got him on his back and that was nice."

Sophomore Souder continued the theme when he knocked off the number-one seed at 125, Lyons' Matt Nora, by a 6-3 score in the quarterfinal round.

"I'm pretty happy, especially since I was able to get past the first day and know I'm getting a medal," said Souder, who began the day with a 6-4 mark.

And then freshman Johnson highlighted a successful quarterfinal round for the Porters when he edged the second-seed at 189, Antioch's Tom Gerstner, by a 7-5 score.

Also earning semifinal berths for the Porters were Jameson Oster (119), Tony Tonelli (130), Kevin Bialka (152), Mark Stenberg (171) and Mike Tetlow (285).

Minooka advanced 6 wrestlers to the semifinals while Lincoln-Way Central had 2 other quarterfinal winners and Lemont also sent two to the semifinals.

Winning quarterfinal matches for the Indians were Bobby Zabel (112), Joeie Ruettiger (119), Blake Montella (125), Marcus Rangel (135), Ryan Warczynski (152) and Cody Jones (285).

The Knights also advanced Adam Heimer (140) and Pete Damiani (171) to the semifinal round while Lemont's quarterfinal winners were Matt Leibforth (135) and Angel Cabral (285).