North’s Cabrera Wins Sectional Title At 119, Heads Downstate With Three Teammates

The North Knights wrestlers took five wrestlers to Antioch looking to qualify for the state tournament. Four of them made it through a very challenging Sectional field.

Junior Angel Cabrera (37-6) won the Sectional title at 199. He advances to the state tournament with runner-up sophomore Stone Dax (19-12) at 152 pounds, and third place medalists Junior Nick Klein (20-8) at 112 pounds and senior Rich Downes (38-5) at 135 pounds.

The top 3 medalists at each weight class will head downstate to Assembly Hall at the University of Illinois this weekend.

Cabrera had a grueling semi-final match against Devonte Rimmer of Chicago King and escaped with a 3-2 win. Then in the finals, Cabrera won a hard fought match over Elmwood Park’s Mike DiFrisco (32-4) by a 5-3 margin and earned the gold medal for the 119 pound class. Angel was also a 2011 Regional Champ.

"This is my first time downstate and I am so ready for it," said Cabrera. "I bit my lip blocking a takedown by DiFrisco, but that couldn’t stop me from winning."

Dax won his first match 13-8 over Chris Butz of Fenton. In the semi-finals he bested Courtney Overton of North Chicago with a major decision 12-3 victory. This put him into the finals against Junior Brett Okane (36-12) of Richmond Burton. Okane, ranked 10th in the state, muscled Dax into a tough position and eventually pinned him.

"I wrestled at 140 pounds last year and wrestled at 160 this year for a while, but I feel most successful at 152," said Dax. "I don’t feel well right now…kind of sick to my stomach. I’m disappointed but this is the biggest accomplishment so far in my life. At least I am going downstate with some of my teammates."

Klein made it to the championship bout with a smart, aggressive wrestling style. He won a very, very close match over Antioch’s Brandon Schultz (33-19) to advance to the medal round. In the finals, Freshman Garrett Sutton (42-4) of Richmond Burton won first place with an 8-2 decision over Klein.

"It was a tough loss," said Klein. "But this will be my first trip downstate since middle school. I just missed going last year by 1 point. The coaches have prepared us all year long for the chance to do this."

Downes was a returning state qualifier for Grayslake North and looking for a repeat performance. After losing a close semi-final match to eventual Sectional Champion Sean Havlovic of Fenton by a 7-4 score, Downes came back to pin Andy Glebiv of Gordon Tech in 1:55. He then pinned Jonathan Ramierez of Vernon Hills to take the 3rd place medal at 135 pounds and earn a return trip to the U of I.

"This is not what I wanted to happen today, but I am glad to be going downstate," said Downes. "I’m the only senior from our team going to U of I this weekend. Last year we qualified nine guys out of the regionals but only three made it out of the sectional to state."

Jimmy Prince (35-9), a state qualifier last year, had a couple of tough matches in the incredibly stacked 215-pound weight class. At the Antioch Sectional, the 3rd, 5th (Prince), 7th and 8th ranked wrestlers were competing for the three spots to go downstate.

Prince had previously beaten Grayslake Central’s Kevin Hein (ranked 7th) at the Fox Valley Conference Tournament by one point and again at the Regionals by the same margin. This time Hein won by a 7-5 tally in a seesaw battle that had their coaches and fans on the edge of their seats.

Prince pinned David Connelly of River Grove in 1:14 in his wrestleback match. Then he faced Ed Havlovic of Fenton (23-5) for the 3rd place medal. In a fiercely contested match that went 3 overtimes, Prince succumbed to Havlovic 7-5. Prince could truly say that he left everything out on the mat after this bout.

Coach Tom Frye knew that the 215-pound class would be a real toss up with so many ranked wrestlers competing in it. "I had confidence that Klein, Cabrera and Downes could get to the top 3 in their respective weight classes, but Stone Dax was the wild card. He’s only a sophomore but he came through with some great wins today. I can’t say enough about how proud Coach Wood and I are of these guys and the way they performed today."

"We would love to see all of our Sectional winners from the different schools do well when they wrestle downstate this weekend," said Frye. "We want to show the rest of the state the top quality wrestling programs that we have coming our of our area."

Both Grayslake High Schools, the Knights and the Rams, will be charging ahead at the competition in the state tournament. With the Fab Four of North joined by the Triple Threat of Central, these seven young men are certainly going to put the town of Grayslake on the wrestling map when they compete at Assembly Hall this weekend.

Information about the state tournament schedule can be found at this website: http://www.ihsa.org/activity/wr/2010-11/1sched.htm.

NEXT MEET: IHSA State Tournament at Assembly Hall, University of Illinois beginning Feb. 18.