GRANITE CITY – Both Alton and Granite City’s wrestling teams had successful outings in the second day of the 55th edition of the William “Red” Schmitt Holiday Wrestling Tournament at Granite City’s Memorial Gym complex Tuesday.
The Redbirds came away with two third-place and two fifth-place finishes on the day, while the host Warriors had one championship (Kyle Thompson, who defeated Jon Fogarty of Lafayette 5-1 in overtime in the 170-pound title bout), a third-place finish, a sixth-place finish and two eighth-place finishes.
The results helped Granite City to an 11th-place team finish with 298.5 points, while Alton took 13th with 272.5 points. Lafayette of St. Louis County won the team title with 583.5 points, followed by Kansas City-area school Staley with 523.5; two-time defending champion Neosho, Mo., with 518; northern Illinois school Plainfield South with 481.5; and CBC of St. Louis with 417 to round out the top five. Other Metro East area schools taking part were Collinsville (16th with 206.5) and East St. Louis (23rd with 119).
The tournament has earned a reputation of having some of the best competition to be seen in the St. Louis area year in and year out, and that’s why the Redbirds take part in the tournament, said Alton coach Eric Roberson. “That’s why we’re here,” Roberson said. “We come here to see these teams; it’s loaded with some tough Missouri teams, outstanding Illinois teams. We’re right in the middle of the pack, so we come here for tough competition; we get 8-10 matches in. That’s pretty much what we accomplished.
“It’s got the reputation of being a very high-quality tournament with tough competition.”
The Warriors have had their share of difficulties with injuries this season, but the title at 170 by Kyle Thompson and a third-place finish by Wilyonde Bell at 145 pleased GCHS coach George Kirgan. “I was pretty proud of our kids tonight,” Kirgan said. “We got two wins, we had our first champion in awhile; Kyle went up a weight (class) and he actually lost to that kid (Fogarty, who pinned Thompson in their final qualifying-round bout Monday) yesterday; he threw him onto his back and pinned him.
“Today we went over some things to try to adjust to that, and he did exactly what we talked about. He’s really coachable and it’s really shown.”
Thompson’s championship was the first individual title won by a Warrior wrestler in the tournament since Jacob Gregorson won the 135-pound class in the 2010 tournament.
In addition to Thompson’s win, Bell took third at 145 with a 6-4 overtime win over Staley’s Tyler Craig, while Korinthian Nabors finished sixth at 285 when was was pinned by Matt Sarhage of Triad in 3:04 in the fifth-place bout. Joe Garcia took eighth at 160, dropping the seventh-place bout to Mahomet-Seymour’s Josh Valade 3-0 and John Hirsch took eighth at 138.
For the Redbirds, Keontay Holmes finished third at 182 when he defeated South Elgin’s Zack Crosby 3-1 while Keondrick Russell finished third at 195 when his final opponent, Tim Donnahue of Plainfield North, was injured in the second period of their bout and could not continue. Fifth-place finishes came from Connor Broyles at 132 (defeating Sam Paneitz of Wentzville Timberland 3-1) and Alejandro Lopez at 145 (defeating Juan Quiroz of Huntley 7-5).
Other champions were Travis Ford-Melton of Chicago Heights Marian (106), Mike McAteer of Whitfield (113), Josh Stenger of Huntley (120), Carlos Champagne of Chicago Heights Marian (126), Marc Fleenor of Plainfield South (132), John Ferguson of Buford, Ga. (138), Alex Wier of Lafayette (145), Kyler Rea of Neosho (152), Kurtis Hahn of Whitfield (160), Kordell Norfleet of Chicago Heights Marian (182), Zach Elam of Staley (195), Eric Johnson of Plainfield South (220) and Dom Swanson of Huntley (285).
