Men's Wrestling | 1/22/2015 10:25:00 PM

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Kelly Garrigus, Graduate Assistant to the Sports Information Director, 630-637-5302

Jan. 22, 2015 – The North Central College wrestling team hosted Wheaton College on Thursday night and earned a 24-23 conference win after both sides battled through injuries. 

The Cardinals took a different route with their lineup by moving six of their wrestlers up a weight class after inserting recent College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin Wrestler of the Week (CCIW) Howard Beatty into the 141-pound class.  

At 125, sophomore Dominic Boggia started the night off against the Thunder's Carlos Fuentez. Fuentez won with a 19-5 major decision, putting the Thunder up 4-0. 

The Cardinals took the 133-pound class when Brandon Malone dominated the Thunder's Tom Foy with a 6-0 decision giving the team three points. 

This started off a string of success for the Cardinals with Beatty (141) and Layten Binion (149) winning both of their matches. Beatty quickly handled Jeremiah Brown of the Thunder by pinning him at 1:59. Binion had a tough matchup with the Thunder's Campbell Morton, but he pulled out a 6-2 decision to make the overall score 12-4. 

The dual took a bad turn for the Cardinals after the Thunder's Mark Savenok (157), Stephen Aiello (165) and Frank Aiello (174) all won their matchups. Savenok would beat the Cardinals' Nathan Segal (157) with a 7-2 decision. Blake Olson (165) lost his matchup with Stephen Aiello with a fall at 4:55 and Eric Kirkman (174) lost against Frank Aiello with a 13-5 major decision. 

The score stood at 17-12 with the Thunder in front before the Cardinals' Matt Marcotte (184) hit the mat against Tim Blickle. The match was in favor of Blickle for most of the time but Marcotte would roar back and come up with a surprise pin at 6:46 which put the Cardinals up 18-17. 

The Cardinal's Vincent Pizzo (197) faced a tougher matchup in the Thunder's Dan Olsen, who is 20-4 on the year. Pizzo gave a strong effort but would be pinned at 4:16. The Cardinals found some luck when the Thunder could not field a wrestler in the 285-class due to injuries, thus giving Dylan Mahler a victory due to medical forfeit. 

This final decision gave the Cardinals a 24-23 win, improving their overall record to 4-3 and their CCIW record to 1-1.  

The Cardinals travel to the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater on Saturday for the Border Brawl Duals that begin at 9:00 a.m. Links to live video and stats can be found at northcentralcardinals.com