By Kevin Cunningham
Correspondent
On Dec. 28-29, the Whitewater High School wrestling team the 38th annual Mid-States Wrestling Classic. The tournament consisted of 42 teams from Wisconsin and Illinois and Whippet head coach John Schimming wanted to thank all of those in the community who helped putting the event on.
For the Whippets, four members made it to day two, finishing within the top-12. The four who made it were Thomas McManaway, Jimmy DuVal, Tyler Gamble and Tyler Sheffield.
For McManaway, he won his first match of day two with an eight-point win and then his following match went into overtime where he pulled off another victory. McManaway would end the tournament in the fifth-place match where he finished on the losing side of another overtime match.
DuVal would make it into the semifinals where he wrestled against an Elkhorn athlete. DuVal would lose this match and no other wrestler could beat the Elkhorn man as he would go on to win the championship. DuVal ended up finishing sixth, but Schimming said he had a lot of tough matches throughout the tournament.
For Gamble, he dropped his initial match, 4-0, but then got a win losing in overtime in the ninth-place match. Much like Gamble, Sheffield’s tournament would end in the ninth-place match to the No. 4 seed in the tournament.
“Sheffield was wrestling up a weight class but that did not stop him from having some great matches,” Schimming said. “In the first match of day two, Sheffield was down 4-7 with 10 seconds left when he threw his kid. Unfortunately his opponent got off his back and Tyler lost 6-7.”
Two other Whippets – Jaden Salmieri and Tyler Lippens ended day one just one win short of progressing to day two. Schimming said that there were ups and downs overall, considering four athletes made it to day two, but a handful also lost their initial two matches.
“This was a great experience for all of the wrestlers as there were many highly ranked wrestlers from both Illinois and Wisconsin participating,” Schimming said. “This is what will make the individuals better and help them understand where there are areas to work on as we now enter the 2nd half of the season.”
The Whippets will next be in action at 7 p.m. on Jan. 6 against Janesville Parker at Whitewater High School. The very next day, varsity will be travelling for an invitational that starts at 9 a.m. at Palmyra-Eagle High School.
