Tigers continue tremendous start

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Updated: January 9, 2012 8:37AM

Elmwood Park’s wrestling team is off to its best start in history with a 7-1 record in dual matches, and they put an exclamation point on that with an 81-0 win over St. Joseph on Friday night in a triangular at Evergreen Park. That score was the highest in program history and just three points shy of a perfect score of 84-0 as all but two of the Tigers’ wins over the Chargers came by way of pin.

“We’ve never done that before, and I went to the IHSA record book and only saw it in the records 20 times,” said Elmwood Park head coach Lane Stone. “It’s not like we try to run up the score, but we go match-by-match and root for every kid to win every single match. You don’t ever want your kids to lose.”

Elmwood Park also knocked off Evergreen Park 66-10 in the triangular.

Senior and two-time state qualifier Mike DiFrisco won both of his matches to stay undefeated at 126 pounds, one of the toughest weight classes in the state. He even avenged a loss from last year when he bested Top-10 ranked Evergreen Park’s Jesse McClain with a 4-3 overtime win after losing to the same wrestler a year ago by pin. With the win, DiFrisco is ranked sixth in his weight class.

“That performance just shows how much he has improved to go from being pinned to actually beating him this year,” Stone said.

Elmwood Park followed that up with a 4-1 record at Niles North on Saturday as the Tigers bested Lakes 51-26, Lake Forest 62-15, Ottawa 54-30 and the host school 42-32. They weren’t able to get past Morton, who finished ahead of them the week before at the Guerin Gator Classic meet, as the Mustangs won 46-19.

Sophomore Ben Vazquez and DiFrisco are both undefeated. Vazquez hasn’t had a match go past a minute as he’s pinned all 10 of his opponents at 103 pounds while Di Frisco is at 9-0. Senior Jim Accettura is also doing well to start the season as he is 10-1 at 170 pounds.

“They all did offseason stuff and extra work,” Stone said of his very reliable trio. “DiFrisco and Accettura know it’s their senior year and are trying to make a mark while Vazquez is a raw talent. He’s going to be one of the top 15 kids in the state this year. He’s an unknown right now and hasn’t been tested. He’s just drilled everybody. The whole team is really focused, and they know if they work hard in practice that they’ll do well in the meet.”

The Tigers will be off until Saturday’s big meet at Walther Lutheran.

Guerin Prep

Injuries have hampered the Gators in the opening part of the season as they lost three wrestlers including sophomore Jake Danner, junior Kevin Doyle, and senior Alex Acosta leaving holes at 152 and 160 pounds. They also had to forfeit at 120, 138, and 145 making it difficult to come up with much in losses to Gordon Tech 48-24 and St. Viator 42-36 in the triangular meet hosted by St. Viator on Nov. 30.

Senior Alex Sullivan at 182 pounds was the only Gator to win both of his matches. Senior Nik Doherty (126 pounds), senior Michael Altman (170), freshman Andres Gonzalez (220) won against Gordon while junior Frank Fini (106), freshman Juan Reyes (113), junior Jaime Santana (132), senior David Connelly (220), and senior Sam Loconti (285) were able to come out on top in their matches against St. Viator.

Guerin traveled to Rockford and placed 11th in the Rockford East “Giardini Varsity Invitational” on Saturday morning. They competed in eight of the 14 weight classes and were able to come away with two place winners. Sullivan finished in first with a pin of Rockford East’s Spencer Fuller in 2:26 of the championship match while Fini went 3-2 on the day to take sixth place at 106 pounds.

“This is Sullivan’s second tournament championship in two weeks,” said Guerin head coach Earl Danan. “He earned his 81st career varsity win, and he is one of the favorites to become All-State in Class A come February.”

Guerin will be at Walther Lutheran for a big meet on Saturday afternoon after getting the week to rest up and recuperate from their injuries.