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Elmwood Park’s Vazquez reconsiders outburst
Fenwick's Ryan Sanchez (top) wrestles Fenton's Jiven Delgado in a 120-pound match during Saturday's Class 2A regional at Fenton. | Jeff Krage~for Sun-Times Media
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Updated: March 8, 2013 6:42AM
BENSENVILLE — Elmwood Park’s Ben Vazquez advanced to sectionals with relative ease — the junior beat Fenton senior Edgar Ramirez by an 11-3 major decision in the semifinals of the Fenton Regional.
But he nearly saw his season reach a premature conclusion at the end of his championship match against Montini senior Tommy Pawelski.
Pawelski pinned Vazquez at 3:01 to win the Fenton Regional’s 113-pound title. Pawelski stood at the center of the mat after his victory, waiting for Vazquez to stand across from him and shake his hand. But Vazquez, clearly upset, slightly bumped Pawelski en route to the middle of the mat and then “just started swearing and kind of stormed off the mat,” Pawelski said.
The match’s referee got between the wrestlers and seemed to be on the verge of disqualifying Vazquez from the tournament. The IHSA wrestling terms and conditions state, “managers and officials have the strictest instructions to disqualify any wrestler ... guilty or (sic) profane or indecent language or of gross unsportsmanlike conduct.”
Vazquez quickly walked to the locker room almost immediately after the match, but emerged minutes later. Over the course of the next 20 minutes, he walked up the referee and Montini coach Israel Martinez. Vazquez shook the hands of both and apologized.
He will wrestle at this weekend’s Antioch Sectional.
“He lost his cool and he’s very fortunate it didn’t cost him his season,” Elmwood Park coach Neil Posmer said.
Ikedionwu sprints to sectionals
Fenwick senior Dubem Ikedionwu wasted little time preparing himself for sectionals immediately after his match against Montini junior Michael Maduko, Class 2A’s No. 3 ranked wrestler at 170 pounds. The Palos Heights resident did sprints next to the mat where the consolation finals were taking place immediately after losing a 7-6 decision to Maduko.
The reason for the sprints was that, “our coaches always tell us to wrestle the full six minutes,” Ikedionwu said. “Six minutes is three periods, but after our matches they want us to keep our energy going and get our conditioning up for the times when we’re deep in overtime and we need that little bit more.”
Ikedionwu will be joined by junior Emerson Harris (126 pounds), sophomore Ben Uphues (138), senior Tony Triggiano (152) and junior Mike Kozyra (160) at sectionals.
