By CURT HERRON cherron@shawmedia.com

Jan. 28, 2016

PLAINFIELD – During his 16 years of coaching in Minooka’s wrestling program, Bernie Ruettiger rarely has had to worry about seeing a team make huge progress in a season.

But the hall of fame coach was faced with a mixture of talented but young individuals to go along with a few veterans, then had to deal with injury woes throughout the season.

However, things appear to be moving in a good direction for the Indians as they prepare for the Class 3A Bradley-Bourbonnais Regional on Feb. 6.

Minooka closed out the regular season portion of its schedule Thursday when it rolled to a 58-12 Southwest Prairie Conference victory at Plainfield Central.

The Indians won seven of the 10 contested matches and just missed out on two others in addition to the four forfeits that were conceded by the Wildcats.

“Our guys have to keep peaking, they have to keep this up,” Ruettiger said. “Our 182- and 195-pounders, Connor Briley and Dan McMillin, what great improvement they’ve made. They’re two guys who just keep learning and are getting better and better each time. We’re coming on as a team, we really are. The future is theirs, if they want it.

“We have 11 freshmen and sophomores at the varsity level, and they’re talented kids who are doing well. They’re great kids and are nice, maybe too nice, and they’re so self-conscious of everything. But they’re starting to get tough out there.”

The Indians presented a lineup that featured 11 sophomores and seniors Kenny Kirkland, Carson Oughton and David Newman against Central, which also is a young team this year.

Minooka won the first five matches to grab an early 26-0 advantage. After the Wildcats got their initial win, the Indians responded with a run of four more victories before the squads split the final four matches.

Tommy Haase kicked things off with a win by technical fall at 106, and Cody Hoshell followed with a pin at 113 before Dominic Ruettiger (120) and Zach McDowell (126) received forfeits. At 132, Jared Moreno claimed a 9-2 victory over Jake Warren for Minooka’s fifth win.

“We’re hoping to stay together until senior year and hopefully eventually make it downstate,” Haase said. “We’re hoping to make this kind of progress every year and stay together as a team. Most of us are sophomores, so we all go to the same school, and we have good friendships with each other.”

The Wildcats picked up their first win at 138 when Noah Bogdan held off Jake Ryan, 5-4, and then Minooka got rolling again as Danny Debow edged Doug Cleaves, 3-2, at 145. After Haase’s twin Tyler received a forfeit at 152, Kirkland won by technical fall at 160, and two-time state placewinner Oughton also won by forfeit at 170.

Central ended the run by getting a 7-3 win from Jacob May over Connor Briley at 182 before Thomas Gustafson recorded a fall in 5:57 to prevail in a back-and-forth match against Dan McMillin at 195. Jerad Price won by default at 220 when senior David Seeley was unable to continue in the third period, and Newman closed things out with a fall over senior Kamil Fit.

While impressed with the progress that Minooka has made, Wildcats coach Ryan West was disappointed by how his team performed in its last action before the Lockport Regional.

“Minooka’s wrestling well, and they’ve come back strong in the last year and have made a lot of improvements,” West said. “We’re trying to get healthy and make improvements, and hopefully by next Saturday we’re a little bit more ready to go than we were tonight.

“We were missing some guys tonight, but no excuses. Minooka was the better wrestling team, and they outwrestled us and were tougher than us. Our guys need to step up and fight back. But tonight does not decide the season, so we have to be prepared both mentally and physically by next Saturday, and hopefully we can put a healthy team on the mat.”