Rough Day 1, but Cadets looking good

[Rob Sherrill]

Illinois lost 28 of its 63 Cadet freestyle entries on opening day at the FargoDome yesterday. Other states suffered some carnage as well, however, so Illinois is still in pretty good shape.

That means that 35 Illinois wrestlers remain alive going into this afternoon's combined Cadet/Junior session, the next time the Cadets take the mat. It's just Juniors getting started this morning.

Sixteen of the 35 who remain are undefeated. Only two states, Pennsylvania (24) and Minnesota (18), have more total wrestlers remaining than Illinois has unbeaten.

******

So that's good news as well for some more Wells Fargo hardware.

Of particular interest is 112 pounds, where the Fab Four of Sebastian Pique, Barlow McGhee, Josh Alber and Jordan Laster all have been cleaning up with perfect 5-0 records.

Also 5-0: Garrett Sutton (125) and Colin Holler (140). Jordan Northrup (105) and Brandon Arteaga (130) also are rolling with 4-0 records.

The total list of unbeatens:

84 - Jordan Reich (1-0), Nick Lukanich (2-0), Jabari Moody (2-0)
91 - Carlos Fuentez (3-0), Miguel Silva (3-0)
105 - Jordan Northrup (4-0)
112 - Sebastian Pique (5-0), Barlow McGhee (5-0), Josh Alber (5-0), Jordan Laster (5-0)
125 - Garrett Sutton (5-0)
130 - Brandon Arteaga (4-0)
140 - Colin Holler (5-0)
145 - Austin Culton (3-0)
171 - Ricky Robertson (3-0)
285 - Michael Johnson (2-0)

The total wrestlers remaining in some other states:

Pennsylvania, 24
Minnesota, 18
New Jersey, 15
California, 14
Ohio and Oklahoma, 13
Indiana, 11
Iowa and Wisconsin, 9
Michigan, 7
Florida, 5

So today is an important one to close the deal.