FARGO RECAP & More ILLINI Goodness

FARGO

Like Ray Charles singing America the Beautiful, Fargo started off on a somber note, not uncertain, but also not certain, found some inner soul and then built and built and built to a mighty crescendo. In 16U Freestyle, the men and women from ILLINOIS both finished 9th, and in 16U Greco, the men finished a little worse at 11th. 

In Junior Freestyle, the ILLINOIS team finished in 8th, while the womenfolk found their inner soul and finished 3rd. 

The mighty crescendo came with Junior Greco, and my goodness those men tore it up. ILLINOIS won the thing by sixty points, 164 to a second-place team that only managed 104. Iowa finished in 5th with 74, while Pennsylvania was 11th with 44. 

That kind of performance becomes part of the legend. 

ILLINI RECRUITS

The ILLINI recruits had a total of four All American performances out of four attempts. Kannon Webster led the way with a second in Freestyle and a championship (and Outstanding Wrestler award) in Greco. Kole Brower finished 7th in Freestyle--making sure of it with a pin in the blood round--while future teammate Will Baysinger rocked Greco for a third-place finish. 

ILLINOIS ALL AMERICANS

Here is a list of all of the All-American finishers for War ILLINOIS at Fargo:

16U Freestyle (Men)

Ben Davino (Champion), Seth Mendoza (2nd), and James Hemmila (6th).

16U (Women)

Cadence Diduch (2nd), Angelina Cassioppi (3rd), Sydney Perry (3rd), Mackenzie Pratt (6th), Sophie Bowers (7th), Lexi Ritchie (7th), Alexandra Sebek (8th), and Harlee Hiller (8th).

16U Greco

Wyatt Schmitt (2nd), James Hemmila (4th), Lee Smith (4th), Anthony Gutierrez (5th), Nicholas Ronchetti (6th), Wyatt Medlin (8th), and Gavin Pardilla (8th).

Junior Freestyle (Men)

Kannon Webster (2nd), Deion Johnson (2nd), Dillan Johnson (2nd), Ethan Stiles (5th), Kole Brower (7th), Tony Ruzic (8th), and Gylon Sims (8th).

Junior (Women)

Cadence Diduch (Champion), Sydney Perry (Champion), Alexis Janiak (3rd), Netavia Wickson (3rd), Kiara Ganey (4th), Natasha Markoutsis (5th), and Rose Cassioppi (7th).

Junior Greco

Bradley Gillum (Champion), Anthony Ruzic (Champion), Braden Stauffenberg (Champion), Kannon Webster (Champion), Jayden Colon (2nd), Massey Odiotti (2nd), Will Baysingar (3rd), Tyler Martinez (6th), and Nick Nosler (8th).

There was some recruitment taking place on the interwebs, with ILLINI fans showing their love. It would be hard for me because I want you, you, you, you, you, you, you and you, and I'll take two of you. 

This was before all the points were tallied up:

This amazed me.

Was there some young North Dakota couple that had to hold their wedding reception at the Elk's Lodge because ILLINOIS had reserved the ballroom for wrestling? I love it! This is why the state does so well at Fargo: Organization, training, and creative thinking.

Running around with a backpack containing emergency supplies is also nice. 

THE TOM JONES CHALLENGER LEAGUE

This is what makes me smile. You want to root for a team that goes out of their way to help the community. This is from the website of local TV station WCIA:

And the ILLINI Wrestling team was there to help out:

One of the WCIA anchors had an ILLINI Wrestling hero matched up with her daughter:

LUFFMAN, INKED AND THE ILLINI NIL STORE

Luke Luffman is representing! He will soon have his own line of merch. I hope that Luke uses my "Orange Hulk" for a graphic (or something like it, maybe by a better artist). Keep an eye out for "Luffmanwear" so that you can be cool like Luke. 

ILLINI LEGENDS: The Alex Tirapelle Story

I'm going to talk to you in Bitcoinspeak now, so get ready. 

If you want to hear the alpha from a top dog and not get rekt, then load up the video below so you can hodl your joy as you shoot to the moon! Basically, what I'm saying is this: Watch the Adam Tirapelle interview as he'll drop some straight up knowledge on your ***, and you can enjoy it thusly.