Morrison High School Wrestling Coach Tony Wright submitted this article.
On Saturday, February 9, 2019, two Mustang wrestlers punched their ticket to the IHSA State Final Tournament.
Colton Linke and Riley Wilkens both placed third at the weekend’s Individual Wrestling Sectional, earning their right to compete for a State title in Champaign, IL.
Linke and Wilkens will compete starting at noon, on Thursday, February 14. Follow the action on the live stream: https://www.nfhsnetwork.com/associations/ihsa.
Colton Linke suffered a first round loss on Friday night, February 8, to Lena-Winslow’s, Simon Rillie, the #9 ranked wrestler in the State. Linke bounced back. He won his next two wrestle back matches in dominant fashion, before meeting up against Rillie again in the the “blood-round” (the qualification round.) The match started fairly slowly, but Linke lit things up when he hit Rillie with a headlock, scoring five points. He would build on the lead and go on to win the match 11-6. In the third place bout Linke again proved his resolve. He earned a 4-2 victory over Sherrard’s Dylan Russell, who had beaten him in the Regional finals a week ago. Colton Linke is at right.
Riley Wilkens took a different route. He won his first two matches Friday evening via pin, but not without a little drama. In his second match of the evening, Wilkens faced Aurora Christian’s, #10 Darrell Gregg. Gregg scored early in the match, tripping Wilkens down to his back. Wilkens was able to hold off the pin in the first period. Later in the bout it was Wilkens who utilized a trip, to send Gregg to his back and score the fall that put him in the Semifinals. Wilkens would lose in the Semis to #3 Chase Tatum before pinning his “blood-round” opponent, Hunter McAlpine, to secure his trip to State. In the third-place match Wilkens dominated the #5 ranked wrester in the State, Peyton Lind of Byron, IL. Riley Wilkens is at right.
Two other Mustangs, Ryan Kennedy and Kayden White, competed in the weekend’s Sectional tournament. Kennedy went 1-2, and White went 2-2 for the weekend. Both wrestled and competed as hard as they could have, but unfortunately came up short. Kennedy lost a heartbreaker to Lena-Winslow’s, Austin McPeek; collected a pin in the wrestle-backs; then was eliminated from the tournament by Orion’s #7 Noah Schnere. White earned a first round pin before losing to #4 Zeke Marshall of Aurora Christian. White would win his first wrestle-back then fall to #10 Colton Reiman of Riverdale.
Mustang wrestlers are shown left-to-right as they entered the arena: Colton Linke, Ryan Kennedy, Kayden White, and Riley Wilkens. Coach Wright stated, “They competed really well!”
