State's elite wrestlers returning to PIT

PRINCETON -- Once again, the Princeton Invitational Wrestling Tournament has put together a field that in talent rivals the state finals in Champaign, only now under a different name. No less than 19 of the 24 teams involved Friday and Saturday in the Lyle King Princeton Invitational Tournament, now named for the founder of the PHS wrestling program, are ranked by Illinois Best Weekly magazine in the top 24 teams in the state. That figure includes eight of the top 10 teams in Class A, starting with No. 3 Roxana and followed in order by Oregon, Dakota, Wilmington, Vandalia, Petersburg PORTA, Rock Falls and Port Byron Riverdale. The only top 10 teams missing are No. 1 Montini and No. 2 Sandwich. Those teams bring with them 33 of last year's state qualifiers, including five fourth-place finishers, one third, three seconds and two firsts, defending Class A state champions at 103, Kankakee McNamara's Mike Ryan, now wrestling at 112, and at 215, John Wise of Pittsfield, now competing at 275. And Princeton coach Randy Swinford feels that Bloomington, which is ranked as a "team to watch" in Class AA, may be the team favorite. Such a field presents a rather daunting task for the host Tigers, the only Class A team among those five participants that aren't ranked, along with AA's Ottawa, Peoria Woodruff, Yorkville and Crystal Lake Prairie Ridge. "Each year we seed the top eight, but we could seed 12. There are kids sometimes that have records like 16-4, but they're not seeded," said Swinford. "Last year, we had a state champion and a runner-up and still finished ninth and one kid who won a state championship last year, Randy Murray from Kankakee McNamara, finished sixth at our tournament. ... Last year's team champ, Dundee Crown, left us, but it's been replaced by Dakota, which gives up a couple of classes but everyone else in the line-up has at least 12 wins. "We believe this is one of if not the best Class A tournament in the state, right up there with the Dvorak and some of the 32-teamers in Chicago. And it just keeps getting better and stronger every year." The schedule has preliminary round action running Friday from 5 to 6:45 p.m., first round action from 6:45 to 8:45 p.m. and prelim wrestlebacks from 8:45 to 10:30 p.m. The championship round quarterfinals and second-round wrestlebacks start Saturday's program from 9 a.m. to noon. The semifinals will take place from 4 to 5 p.m. and championship and consolation finals will begin at 6 p.m. Swinford is particularly pleased at the naming of the event for King, who founded the program in 1958-59. "Lyle was a hard-working, class individual," said Swinford of King, who is also an inductee of the Illinois Football Coaches Hall of Fame for his coaching at Chenoa. "Through his initiative, a lot of young men have had the opportunity to make a name for themselves around the state and also a name for the school. We're glad he had that foresight to bring the sport here, he deserves to be recognized for that and we're proud to have his name on our tournament from now on." Among the most competitive classes will be 112, where Ryan is ranked No. 1 ahead of Roxana's Tom Hill, who beat Ryan for the PIT's 103 title in January but lost to him in the state semifinals before taking third last March. The 135 class will have Class A's No. 1 and No. 2, Roxana's Ian Purnell and Riverdale's Jonathan Gosa, while at 160, No. 1 Matt Wenger of Dakota will be contested by two No. 3's, Vandalia's Steve Peters and Oregon's John Benesh. But the best may be at 130, what Swinford called "a real meatgrinder," and at 275, "perhaps the premiere class of the tournament." The top four ranked 130-pounders, in order PORTA's John Bultman, Roxana's Tol Calvin, Riverdale's Garrett Blake and Oregon's Erik Bauer, will be challenged by Bloomington's Brent Robbins, ranked No. 2 in Class AA. At 275, Wise is now ranked No. 2 in the state in his new class, behind Roxana's Rusty Wheat, last year's 275 runner-up. They'll both have to get by two other 2003 state qualifiers, PORTA's Vince Hedgespeth and Rock Falls' Jake Frederick, who are currently ranked No. 4 and 5, respectively, and Yorkville's Zach Harbin, who is unranked in AA but is 17-0.

Swinford believes his Tigers' best shots at a seed may be with senior Dustin Seidel, who has a 13-2 mark at 171, and senior Steve Piper, who is 14-4 at 215. He adds that 130-pound sophomore Bill Foehring (10-8) and 119-pound soph Joe Widuch (10-7) have an outside shot. "With kids like Joey Garrity from Orion (ranked No. 2), Sam Tuggle from Clinton, Gabe Boatman from Vandalia and Luke Winterhalter from Dakota all at 171, Dustin's got his work cut out for him," said Swinford. "For any of these kids, it's a dogfight. A lot of who meets who and when depends on Wednesday night's seeding, but if you're seeded anywhere from 5 through 8, you're going to see an animal in the second round. There's no one left who doesn't have an outstanding record. It really tests your mettle."