Jeremy Marshall fell short Saturday in his bid to become the first Evanston heavyweight since Jeffrey Brown back in 2009 to win the title at the Rus Erb Invitational wrestling tournament hosted annually by Glenbrook South.
But that probably won’t be the last time Marshall is mentioned in the same sentence with a grappler who went on to win the Illinois High School Association state championship that winter.
The ETHS sophomore seems destined to rise in the ranks after the steps he took on his way to that runnerup finish, the best the Wildkits mustered in the two-day event. The mid-season test found Marshall earning more than a passing grade as he improved to 15-3 on the season.
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That’s already more victories than he racked up last year as a freshman, when he beat out a couple of seniors to earn the varsity starting job at 285 pounds and went on to compile a 10-6 won-loss mark. He led the Kits to a tie for 12th place in the team standings Saturday with 73 points, same as Niles North, in the 20-team field.
No one --- certainly not Evanston head coach Rudy Salinas --- is ready to proclaim that Marshall will blossom into the next Jeffrey Brown. And Marshall knows he still has plenty of work to do after he was pinned in the title bout in the third period by Colin Kraus of Richmond-Burton in 4 minutes, 27 seconds.
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“He hasn’t arrived yet. But he’s taking steps in the right direction,” said Salinas. “Our take coming out of this tournament is that Jeremy showed his upside, showed the progress he’s making in his intensity and his approach out there.
“He lost in his first tournament of the year at Vernon Hills to the guy who won the championship, and he was beating that guy when they wrestled. He won our (Elias George) tournament and he did everything he needed to do to win today. He’s embracing the teaching he’s getting and he’s starting to figure out what his own style is. He just needs to mature some more.”
Marshall drew a first-round bye in the 285-pound bracket, then pinned Saul Ramirez of Rolling Meadows in 43 seconds on the first day of competition Friday. In the semifinals Saturday, he took down Palatine’s Jaylen Maiden with just 7 seconds left in the overtime period to punch a ticket to the finals with a 7-5 victory.
Marshall was tied 1-1 with Kraus in the championship match and then wound up on his back.
“There was only one (possible) counter to what Jeremy was doing to him --- and he let the guy do it,” Salinas explained. “The momentum was all in his favor and unfortunately that guy threw a Hail Mary move, and it landed. But Jeremy really had a good tournament. He just needs to believe in himself. He needs to believe that he can be competitive regardless of the other guy’s size, athleticism, or grade in school. He can compete with anyone.”
“Overall, I think I had a pretty good tournament,” said Marshall, who also started on the defensive line for the sophomore football squad. “But in that last match I wasn’t conditioned enough, and I wasn’t prepared. I still have a lot of things to work on.
“I couldn’t take him down. I’ve been gaining weight lately (between 260 and 270 pounds on the scale, depending on the size of his latest meal) but I also have asthma, so it’s harder on my conditioning. It’s hard for me to give it my all. When I looked at the bracket, I felt I was going to win it. But that guy (Kraus) defended me pretty well. He had better position, and he had better conditioning.”
Marshall’s summertime exposure to Greco-Roman/freestyle wrestling that favors grapplers who like to muscle foes with their upper bodies has led to his current style. “Last year (at ETHS) I felt like I could have gone farther and won more, and then over the summer I just kept working to get better,” he said.
The Wildkit sophomore trailed 5-3 early in the third period of the semifinal showdown with Maiden, a junior from Palatine. He battled to a 5-5 tie in regulation, then threw Maiden to the mat for the decisive two points with a trip to the finals on the line.
“He was strong,” Marshall noted. “I could’ve been better against him. I let him work his moves too much, but I’ve learned a lot from my Greco-Roman experience and I got one of those throws on him.”
Evanston’s only other top finishes were scored by senior Marco Terrizzi, third at 132 pounds, and senior Xavier Starks, sixth at 165. The Kits suffered through a bad second round as a team on Friday and couldn’t climb in the standings after that.
Batavia scored 161.5 points to take the team title in a 3-way battle with Oswego (156.5) and Deerfield (143.5).
Terrizzi, now 12-2, opened with pins against Christian Marcus of Niles North (in 0:35) and Alex Asilani of Mundelein Carmel (in 1:48), but then was pinned himself by eventual champion Luke Reddy of Deerfield in 1:48.
He bounced back to defeat Batavia’s Jack Duraski 3-1, then put on a clinic in a 12-0 dismantling of Jake Godoy of Riverside-Brookfield in the third place match.
“I thought Marco was awesome in that third place match,” praised Salinas. “He executed so well in all three phases, on top, in neutral and on the bottom. He really shined in that match.”
Starks entered tournament competition on the year with an unbeaten record, but now stands at 15-3 following losses to Max Mohapp of Lake Forest (11-2), Joseph Griffin of Oswego (fall in 0:52), and Cade Tomkins of Riverside-Brookfield (fall in 2:26).
