Keske wins...

[MR TWISTER]

Jeff Keske (Libertyville) wrestling for Iowa Central won the Daktroniks Open at 149 beating Nebraska-Omaha's Todd Meelny in the semi's. Meelny a junior is a transfer from Iowa who also wrestled for Nebraska-Lincoln and was a former h.s. All American.

[MR TWISTER]

He didn't want to. Said he was still heavy. He is starting either this week or next at the Kaufman Brand. on the 18th.

[James_Oliva]

Jeff Keske (Libertyville) wrestling for Iowa Central won the Daktroniks Open at 149 beating Nebraska-Omaha's Todd Meelny in the semi's. Meelny a junior is a transfer from Iowa who also wrestled for Nebraska-Lincoln and was a former h.s. All American.

I don't know if you gusy realize how huge a win that is for Keske. Meneely was supposed to be a sure-thing NCAA Champion - All-American but has never quite made it click. He also wrestled for Nebraska Lincoln (Cornhuskers) before ending up in Omaha. Big win for Keske.

[Maximus]

I don't know if you gusy realize how huge a win that is for Keske. Meneely was supposed to be a sure-thing NCAA Champion - All-American but has never quite made it click. He also wrestled for Nebraska Lincoln (Cornhuskers) before ending up in Omaha. Big win for Keske.

I realize it. Meneely was "the-Man" coming out of NE. Not sure what happen but, he did have HUGE expectations after high school...

Is it just me or have some of our Illinois guys been making a few heads turn in the college ranks so far?

[grapplingfan]

I realize it. Meneely was "the-Man" coming out of NE. Not sure what happen but, he did have HUGE expectations after high school...

Is it just me or have some of our Illinois guys been making a few heads turn in the college ranks so far?


Good Call. IL had been in a relative drought for the past few years in college accomplishments, and there are plenty of signs that is ending. Another one is Nate Everhart taking fifth at the MSU Open, dropping a 2 point match to MI's Todd and a one point match in the wrestlebacks. He's a frosh at IU. The best part is that a lot of the guys making noise weren't state champs. IL AA state champs have always been great prospects, and our best can definitely compete and win at the next level, the relative lack of AAs recently may come from the fairly low number of non state finalists that go on, compared to states like IA and PA, who are both well ahead of us in AAs recently. I'm not suggesting we are the same as PA, but they have more than 100 AAs over the last ten, IA has 51 and we had 38. That is not an accurate measure of the relative difficulty of wrestling in the three states.
We may be a victim of our own success. Many years at many weights there is so much talent in the state tourney that defeat there can be misleading. I've mentioned this before, but maybe if people were aware of how often the IL AA tourney is comparable in difficulty to Senior Nationals, a tourney (particularly on the east coast) hold up as the gold standard of HS tourneys, maybe there would be more confidence of success at the next level. I can't find the results from this year, but I remember Tyler Clark winning Jr. Nationals w/o winning single A in IL, givining Starzyk his only loss along the way, and of course Morgan placed higher at Sr Nats than IL AA. And the year before 6 of the seven IL AAs at Sr Nats did as well or better there than here. There are even cases like Brian Spangler not qualifying and then easily AAing at Fargo. The only two states above IL in high school wrestling have state tourneys that are more split up talent-wise. Their top divisions, along w/ NJ's one division are the only ones on the same level, Cali is good too, but lately has been behind these four.

[MR TWISTER]

I realize it. Meneely was "the-Man" coming out of NE. Not sure what happen but, he did have HUGE expectations after high school...

Is it just me or have some of our Illinois guys been making a few heads turn in the college ranks so far?

To show how BIG Keske's win was, this week Meneely won the Harold Nichols Open at 149 beating Cael Sanderson's little brother, another can't miss ISU wrestler.

Yes Illinois wrestlers are doing quite well. Even more will step out next week at the Kaufman-Brand biggie at UNO. I have posted some results on the college page.

[grapplingfan]

To show how BIG Keske's win was, this week Meneely won the Harold Nichols Open at 149 beating Cael Sanderson's little brother, another can't miss ISU wrestler.

Yes Illinois wrestlers are doing quite well. Even more will step out next week at the Kaufman-Brand biggie at UNO. I have posted some results on the college page.


Yeah, hey, maybe that win over Albert White wasn't a total fluke, not saying he'd do it again, but he's shaping up to be a regular "giant-killer". Any details on the match, was it close?