Caravan’s Seth Mendoza and Crusaders’ Bobby Conway are also kings of the mat
By Steve Millar
Correspondent
After winning his fourth high school wrestling state championship, Mount Carmel senior Sergio Lemley took a moment to look back on his career and what it took to have so much success.
“It’s all in my heart and my mind,” Lemley said. “I want to be the best and I wanted to go wherever I could be the best. Besides that, everything took care of itself.
“It’s just day by day. Every day, I wake up and I feel, ‘I’m a state champion.’”
Lemley experienced that championship feeling one more time in Champaign, edging Prospect’s Will Baysingar 3-2 to win the Class 3A 132-pound title at the State Farm Center on Feb. 18.
Lemley (35-1), a Michigan recruit, also won Illinois state championships as a freshman and junior at Mount Carmel. As a sophomore, after the coronavirus pandemic altered the season in Illinois, he transferred to Chesterton High School and won an Indiana state title.
Lemley had a tough road to his fourth championship. He escaped a semifinal against Homewood-Flossmoor’s Vincent Robinson – who he also defeated in last season’s championship match – with a 2-1 overtime win.
Then he had to deal with Baysingar (50-2), who was the top seed.
“You’ve got to give something to take something,” Lemley said. “I came in here, I gave everything I had and now I’m going home with some hardware. I knew I’d go through some adversity going through the hard road to get here. It’s something I’ll be able to look back on now and be happy about.”
Lemley’s teammate, sophomore Seth Mendoza, is halfway to matching him. Mendoza (37-2) dominated his way to his second straight championship, finishing it off with a 23-8 technical fall over H-F’s Deion Johnson.
“Going into this tournament, I was really excited,” Mendoza said. “I knew the competition was going to be there the whole way. Like I’ve been doing, I did everything the exact same way from beginning to end and I think that’s what led me to this point.”
Mendoza is business-like on the mat and expects to win, but don’t think he’s not enjoying it.
“I’m having a lot of fun,” he said. “Wrestling has always been my favorite sport and I just come out here to have fun. I never put any pressure on myself. It’s the same thing with my teammates. We always encourage each other to get better every day but also have fun with it the entire time.”
The Caravan’s Eddie Enright (152) and Colin Kelly (170) finished as state runners-up. Damian Resendez (120) and Rylan Breen (182) also reached the podium with fifth-place finishes.
While Lemley and Mendoza’s state championships did not come as a surprise, Brother Rice sophomore Bobby Conway’s was unexpected.
Conway (23-1) completed a run to the Class 2A 126-pound title when Triad’s Colby Crouch was unable to finish the championship match due to injury.
Crouch (31-1) was undefeated and a returning state champ, but Conway nearly pinned him multiple times during an entertaining two periods in which both competitors piled up points.
Crouch led 15-13 when he appeared to injure his knee on a Conway takedown at the end of the second period. He was unable to continue.
“I just kept pushing forward,” Conway said. “I wasn’t going to stop. I knew if my confidence went out the window, I was going to lose that match. I just kept wrestling hard. I didn’t look back. Unfortunately, he got hurt, but I think I had him in the third either way.”
Conway went into the match loose and feeling like he had nothing to lose. It paid off.
“I was just enjoying myself,” Conway said. “And it showed. This is crazy. I’m so happy.”
Brother Rice’s Gambino Perez finished fourth at 195.
It was a tough and scary ending to the high school career of Marist’s Peter Marinopoulos.
Marinopoulos (20-1), an Illinois recruit, was taken down hard early in the Class 3A 195-pound championship match by Libertyville’s Cole Matulenko.
Marinopoulos, who appeared to suffer a blow to the head, was clearly dazed when Matulenko pinned him just 31 seconds into the match.
It was the second straight runner-up finish for Marinopoulos.
RedHawks’ junior Conor Phelan, conversely, saw his tournament end with a pin that brought him great happiness.
Phelan (34-16) pinned Bradley-Bourbonnais’ AJ Mancilla to take third at 182.
“Honestly, it was great,” Phelan said. “It was better than I even expected. As much as I would have loved to be here (for a championship match), I know there are some real monsters that I still have to beat. My only goal this year was to place.”
Marist’s Will Denny (145) and Luke Liberatore (220) both finished in fourth place.
Nazareth sophomore Gabe Kaminski took an undefeated record into the Class 1A 220-pound championship match, but Kaminski (30-1) had to settle for second after dropping a 2-1 heartbreaker to Dakota’s Noah Wenzel.
Kaminski was done in by a stalling penalty that awarded Wenzel the go-ahead point in the closing seconds.
“I’ve got to look at what I did wrong,” Kaminski said. “I wrestled to his advantage. I let him do what he wanted to do. This lights a bigger fire for next season.”
Sandburg sophomore Rocco Hayes (41-7) earned a measure of revenge with his 7-5 overtime victory over Marmion’s Nicholas Garcia in the Class 3A 106-pound third-place match.
Garcia had beaten Hayes the previous in the Hinsdale Central Sectional championship match.
“I went in there trying to score a lot more than last time and not keep it tight,” Hayes said. “I just wanted to be aggressive and score points.
“Next year, I’m coming here to win a state title.”
Lyons junior Gunner Garelli (41-11) finished fourth in 3A at 160. Garelli beat St. Charles East’s Anthony Gutierrez 2-0 to seal a spot on the podium, but was pinned by Quincy’s Owen Uppinghouse in the third-place match.