By Shane Fergus, Editor

The Knights wrestling team recently finished in third place in the Northern Illinois conference championship meet.

This was a great finish for the team considering the only has enough wrestlers to fill nine out of the fifteen weight classes due to injuries.

Top individual finishers for the Knights included first-place finishers junior Stephen Gust and junior Dan Goress. Second place were junior Esai Ponce and senior Ben Kovalick, while third place wrestlers were juniors Connor Williams and Zach Theis.

“Individually the season has gone well, I am currently 35-4 and took second place at conference. I have also done pretty well at tournaments,”  Ponce said.

Despite the missing weight classes the team continues to make strides by getting better and better everyday at practice and during meets.

“So far this season we have been a good tournament team but some missing weight classes has caused us to struggle in dual meet,” Coach Mike Thorgeson said.

Coming up in the next couple weeks, the Knights will be preparing for regionals and potential sectional and state match ups.

“Overall my goals are to place at state and, as a team, send as many people down to state as possible,”  Kovalick said.

The Knights recently competed at regionals and qualified seven wrestlers to the sectional meet for individual qualifiers which will be held at Sterling high school.

Among the seven were, first place finishers, Goress, and Theis, second place was Kovalick, the third place finishers were Ponce, Williams, Gust, and junior Sonny Horn.

As a team the Knights finished in third place with 119 points, including three missing weight classes. Finishing in first and second  were conference rivals Sycamore and DeKalb.

“Our team goals for the rest of the season are to place top three as a team at regionals and hopefully send a couple wrestlers down to state,” Thorgeson said.