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The team also broke the school record for
Sectional Qualifiers with 12.
It is a great time to be a Railer wrestler and head coach Justin
Dietrich was beaming with pride after the team was introduced at
halftime of the Railer basketball game on Saturday night.
“It was awesome,” said Dietrich of the championship. “I am just
really happy for the community and for our wrestling community
because even people like Walt Landers and Alex Dawson, guys that
have been coaching our youth, for those guys to see us produce
at the high school level, it means a lot to me that we were able
to do that for those guys.
“We broke a school record today with 12 Sectional Qualifiers.
This is the first Regional Championship since 1984, so that’s
awesome. I am just really proud of the guys.
“It was pretty exciting too, because we were down. We were in
second place going into the finals round and we had 12 guys
wrestle in the finals. We won nine out of 12 matches, and
Jacksonville, I think they won two out of 11, so that was the
big flip. Our guys really stepped up and they wrestled when the
pressure was on.”
Lincoln placed three wrestlers in the top stop on the podium at
Regionals. “We had three champs today,” continued Dietrich.
"Isaac Decker (120) is a freshman and he got the two seed, so
for him to win, it was a big deal. Austin O’Donoghue (145) beat
a really good kid from Springfield. And then we had Jake
Benninger, our heavyweight, win first place as well.”
This coming weekend the wrestlers will compete at Mascoutah in
Sectionals.
The IHSA State Finals will take place in Champaign at the State
Farm Center February 20-22.
There is still one more chance to catch the Railers in action at
Roy S. Anderson Gymnasium.
“Since we won our regional today we are going to host the team
sectional the following Tuesday,” said Dietrich. “I don’t know
who we wrestle yet. But we will wrestle in a dual against
another team that won a regional today. It will either be
Mahomet-Seymour, Mattoon or Troy Triad. If we win that, then we
go to the state tournament as a team. So, it’s cool that we get
to wrestle it here.”
LDN will keep readers posted as soon as that information becomes
available.
The Dual State Tournament will take place on February 29, 2020
at Grossinger Motors Arena in Bloomington.
Here is a list of the wrestlers and how they finished on
Saturday at Regionals:
106 — Noah Johnson (3rd place)
113 — Steven Walters (3rd Place)
120 — Isaac Decker (Champion)
132 — Trevor Bree (2nd place)
145 — Austin O’Donoghue (Champion)
152 — Brandon Sweitzer (3rd place)
160 —Nathan Ladage (3rd Place)
170 — Hayden Gellner (3rd Place)
182 — Nolan Yeates (2nd Place)
195 — JT Guzzardo (2nd Place)
220 — Austin Daniels (3rd place)
285 — Jake Benninger (Champion)
Congratulations, Railers!
[Teena Lowery]
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