Henry Rules Regional At 190 Pounds

Brian Henry hasn’t seen everything in his wrestling career at Evanston.

But the senior knows enough not to be too impressed when he’s matched up against a No. 1 seed in a tournament with his season on the line.

One of the few experienced grapplers in the starting lineup for the Wildkits Saturday at the Illinois High School Association Class 3A Maine South Regional tournament, Henry topped the No. 1 seed in the semifinals and went on to earn Evanston’s only championship at 190 pounds.

Junior heavyweight Jeremy Marshall, who finished second, and senior Ken Coleman, second at 175, will join Henry at next Friday’s Conant Sectional along with individual qualifiers from the St. Charles East, Lake Park and Addison Trail regionals. The top three regional finishers in each weight class automatically advance to the sectional level.

That trio led what is likely the most inexperienced lineup veteran ETHS head coach Rudy Salinas has ever entered in postseason competition to an overall fifth place finish in the nine-team field. Lane Tech claimed the team title with 222.5 points, ahead of Maine South (201), Maine West (141.5), Taft (136.5) and Evanston (82).

Even Henry, a senior, didn’t compete last year in an effort to raise his grade point average with a focus on academics. But a bigger and stronger grappler who was tough to beat as a freshman and sophomore took his game to the next level and improved his season won-loss record to 27-15 after pinning Lane Tech’s Jose Lagunas in 4 minutes, 39 seconds in the 190-pound finale.

Earlier in the day, Henry knocked off top-seeded Adnan Shkeir of Maine East with another first period fall in 5:12. And the determined senior might have been the only person in the building who didn’t consider his victory as an upset.

“If you see guys for the first time early in the season, it can be tough,” Henry said. “But as you wrestle against guys over time, and you’ve seen them before, it’s not so much daunting when you’re up against a No. 1 seed. It just indicates that you might have to adjust the way you wrestle (from a prior meeting). They all basically have just one throw (on offense) and you learn how to defend against them.

“Today the bracket was full of guys I’ve seen before. The Lane Tech guy was the guy I was worried about, but I handled him well enough. He’s taller than I am, and he likes to get in ankle licks, so I just kept my space and capitalized on his mistakes. It feels good to be a regional champion, and I feel like it was deserved because I put in a lot of hard work.”

“It’s exciting to have a regional champ, and to see it all come together for Brian on the right day was great,” Salinas said. “He showed a lot of promise his sophomore year, and when he came back this year he took some early losses. But he lost most of those matches when he beat himself, not when the other guys beat him.

“Today when he came off the mat he said he wanted to work on having more options (to score). That shows me he’s hungry, and we have a Hall of Fame coaching staff that can help with what he needs.”

Henry was seeded fourth in his weight class and Coleman earned the No. 3 seed at 170. The pair exceeded their seeds within about 60 seconds of each other in the semis, as Coleman outscored Maine West’s second-seeded Zbigniew Kordalewski by an 11-3 margin.

The Maine West standout led 3-0 after the first period, but then Coleman caught fire, scoring a takedown and a near fall in the last 15 seconds of the second period on his way to the upset win.

The slender senior couldn’t keep that momentum in the finals, though, losing to Lane Tech’s Eyob Abebe 16-7. Coleman will take an 8-11 record into sectional action.

At 285, Marshall couldn’t find a way to score against No. 1 seed Tyler Fortis of Maine South, who made a second period escape stand up for a 1-0 triumph in a real clash of Titans. Fortis improved to an eye-catching 33-2 on the season and beat Marshall for the second time this season.

The Evanston junior even had opportunities to use injury to his advantage in the third period, when he was in the “down” position from the start. The match was stopped three times because of Marshall’s bloody nose, giving him a chance to regroup and figure out a way to at least maneuver for an escape to tie the match, but he came up short.

Marshall will take a 32-5 mark into the sectional after earlier avenging a loss to Niles West’s Manny Olojo in the semifinals. Marshall pinned Olojo, the No. 2 seed, in 2:27 after also pinning Eligiah Pagan of Taft in the first round.

“Good for Jeremy, that he was able to avenge that loss,” Salinas noted. “But I believe, and he should believe, that he should expect more of himself. We need to make all of his hard work come to fruition. He left a lot of opportunities to score out there (in the finals) and a 1-0 loss is no consolation prize. There are too many ‘woulda, coulda, shouldas’ to go with that.”

Evanston’s starting lineup included four freshmen and two sophomores in what Salinas knew would be a rebuilding season. One of those frosh, Art Bytyqi, split four matches and settled for fourth place when he was pinned in 2:38 in the third place showdown. He was seeded fourth at 157 and finished with a 17-16 mark overall.

Another Kit grappler to watch in the future is sophomore Diego Lopez, who placed fourth at 165. A brawler who scored two pins Saturday in the consolation bracket, Lopez was denied a trip to the sectional when he was pinned by Gabe Peto of Lane Tech in the third period. Lopez’s final won-loss record was 17-20 in a weight class that is usually dominated by upperclassmen.