ILLINI RECRUITS AND THE RUTHS!
THE RECRUITS, PRETTY AWESOME, HUH?
Coaches Poeta, Hunter, Ruth and IMAR have to be ecstatic about what looks like an historic recruiting class at ILLINOIS. I was super-impressed with the class two years ago, and two of those guys have gone on to become full-time starters as redshirt Freshmen, while the other folks will be starting in years to come.
But this class is really special with two Who’s #1 wrestlers, numerous Fargo championships and AA honors, State Championships, a wrestler looking to become a four-timer, Ironman Championships and podiums and on and on.
These are the leaders who will bring a
podium finish to ILLINI Wrestling.
The ILLINOIS State Finals will run
from Thursday, February 16 to Saturday, February 18. But on top of the ILLINOIS
stud recruits, there are also beast recruits and commits from WISCONSIN, OHIO
and MINNESOTA. The coaching staff went all over the Midwest to find these
studs.
What are they doing now?
KANNON WEBSTER (WASHINGTON HIGH SCHOOL)
Multiple Fargo champ in Freestyle and Greco, numerous other championships and awards at State (or is it “States”?) and nationally, including among many, a Who’s #1, an Ironman, &tc. He’s a two-time IHSA Champion going for his third bracket this year.
You
could tell that Kannon was growing like a bull on full feed last year, and now
he’s jumped weights again to 145. Here’s his bracket:
ILLINI fans give him and his team a follow:
Twitter: @KannonWebster @wchs_308_wrestl
And Instagram: @k_webster12 @washington.wrestling
BRAEDEN SCOLES (KEWASKUM HIGH SCHOOL)
Braeden is going for his
fourth Wisconsin State Championship this year. Most impressively, as a
Freshman, he beat a Senior in the State Finals who was going for his third
Wisconsin State Championship. Recently, he bumped up to 170 (from 160) for the
Badger Invitational and beat the #2, #4 and #6 wrestlers by pin or tech
fall.
Braeden and Kewaskum High School had team sectionals last night. Individual Sectionals are on February 18, 2023. Individual State runs from February 23-25.
Here is Scoles in a fun video of him looking like a college wrestler as a freshman while winning his first State Championship. I think that's Shane Sparks on the call:
ILLINI fans give Braeden and his school a follow:
Twitter: @bscoles23 @KHSPride
And on Instagram: @bscoles23 @kewaskum_wrestling
WILLIAM BAYSINGAR (PROSPECT HIGH SCHOOL)
From the high school home of four-year ILLINI starter Matt Wroblewski comes William Baysingar of the Prospect Knights. He will be your #1 seed in 3A at 132. Here's his bracket showing 47 wins this year:
And here’s Will winning third
place at Fargo against Matthew Beem of Iowa:
ILLINI fans give Will and his team a follow:
On Twitter: @w_baysingar @PHSWrestling6
On Instagram: @wbaysingar @prospect_knights_wrestling
HUDSON GOEBEL (FINDLAY HIGH SCHOOL)
The wrestling star from Findlay, Ohio has a tournament coming up in Fremont, Ohio in two days. He'll have a Sectional wrestling tournament on February 25, followed by Districts on March 3-4, and finally, the Ohio State Tournament on March 10-12. The Findlay Trojans have a cool website that is sole-purpose wrestling with a lot of links and the schedule and their coaching staff for easy reference.
Here's two-sport star Hudson Goebel intercepting a pass and returning it for a touchdown and also kicking *** on the wrestling mat, followed by a recruiting montage that features him, Will Baysingar and Kannon Webster:
On Twitter: @goebel_hudson @WrestleFHS
On Instagram: @goebelhudson @findlaywrestling
RYAN BENNETT (ST. EDWARD HIGH SCHOOL)
Most recently, Ryan Bennett helped his St. Edward team win the Ohio state Division 1 dual state championships. It was the 43rd overall State Championship for the program, and the eighth under John Heffernan.
Here’s a recent match showing Ryan Bennett against another returning state champ in David McClelland of DeSales:
Instagram: @Ryan_Bennett20 @stedwrestling
CHRIS MOORE (MCHENRY COMMUNITY HIGH SCHOOL)
The pride of The Relentless Training Center and McHenry County, Chris Moore and his 39-0 record will be the #1 seed in 3A. Here is his bracket:
Here's a video of Chris Moore versus another ILLINI commit, Braeden Scoles. These two are going to make each other GREAT! I love this one because they start of with a handshake that includes bumping heads, that turns naturally and immediately into vicious hand-fighting, which evolves into violent pushing and shoving.
This is brother-on-brother violence:
Here's McHenry celebrating their number one seed:
You can follow Chris Moore and his team here:
On Twitter: @McHenryWrestle
LOGAN SWAW (LOCKPORT TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL)
One of your breakout stars of the year has to be Logan Swaw of Lockport, winning in-season tournaments left and right. He has one more Vision Quest to complete this year, and it has everything to do with this bracket:
Logan had bigger and better wins over the year, but when I get a chance to watch a Midwest Wrestle video, I take it. He follows the action like Spielberg:
Plus, Logan is rocking a very cool Izzy Style singlet. You can follow him (look for the new haircut though) and his team here:
On Twitter: @LoganSwaw27 @LTHSWrestling
On Instagram: @loganswaw @lockportwrestling
PETER MARINOPOULOS (MARIST HIGH SCHOOL)
The big man in the middle for YOUR Chicago Bulls ... Peter Marinopoulos! I mean, for your Fighting ILLINI. You can see the respect that he gets with a one seed and only seventeen matches. Well, he put in a lot of great work over the Summer as well.
In fact, it could be a final between Summer Team ILLINOIS teammates, Peter Marinopoulos and Dominic Thebeau. Here's his bracket:
Here's a video featuring ILLINI recruits Peter Marinopoulos, the RedHawk, Joey Ruzic, Logan Swaw, Braeden Scoles and Chris Moore:
Why not give him and his team a follow here:
On Twitter: @PeterMarinopou1 @MaristWrestling
On Instagram: @p.marinop34 @marist_wrestling
BRANDON MORVARI (SIMLEY HIGH SCHOOL)
The Simley High School standout already has a State Championship, a Fargo Freestyle Finals
and a Fargo Greco AA award. Last Summer, Brandon went 12-0 in both Freestyle
and Greco National Junior duals. Crazy!
Here's video of Brandon Morvari beating somebody we know is really good, Deion Johnson of Team ILLINOIS. I bet when I watched this at the time I was rooting against Brandon. Times have changed! Here you go:
Please follow Brandon and his team here:
On Twitter: @BrandonMorvari @simleywrestling
On Instagram: @morvvari @simleywrestling
JOEY RUZIC (AUBURN HIGH SCHOOL)
The last few years have been about reaping all the rewards of hard work for Ruzic. He's won just about everything including an ILLINOIS State Championship, Fargo, and elsewhere. Here he is representing Team ILLINOIS:
I spy with my little eye one very good wrestler and one very familiar backpack man in that photograph. Here's his bracket:
As you can see on his bracket, he's just a Junior. He must've got the good genes from his wrestling dad. I need Twitter and Instagram handles for Auburn Wrestling, but you can follow Ruzic here:
Twitter: @JoeyRuzic
The only disappointment that I have with the class is that there are no bears. I was raised to believe that bears were the best wrestlers on the planet. They are big, aggressive, hairy, probably stinky, and very powerful.
I have looked at
the NCAA’s rulebook and can find nothing that would prohibit our woodland
friends from participating as long as they matriculated to college successfully
and maintained a passing 2.0 grade average.
_________________________
Finally, on an unrelated note (that is actually very related on multiple levels), there is this story out about the Ruth brothers, Ed and Edmond. I say it is related on multiple levels because the story is about Ed and Edmond Ruth's relationship as brothers. It also relates to recruiting because of this:
Why wouldn't you want to wrestle with Edmond Ruth and wrestle for Coach Ed Ruth?
Then, add in Coaches Poeta, IMAR, Hunter and Medlin, the IRTC, Zane Richards, Tanner Farmer, the Russians, and, my friends, well, you know I can go on and on about this forever, so let's get back to the story.
It was all interesting, but I had two favorite parts from the article. The first dealt with overcoming obstacles. It went like this:
"'In the beginning, I was one of the worst wrestlers possible. I was getting pinned almost every single match for years straight, but somewhere in elementary or towards middle school, that's when I started to actually win some matches and started to improve.'"
Can you imagine Edmond Ruth as one of the worst wrestlers possible? Trying, trying, trying ... can't. Then, there's this:
"Edmond ... chose Illinois because of its wrestling and media and cinema studies programs, and his brother serving as an assistant coach was a cherry on top."
I found this interesting because I've seen evidence of Ruth's talent with a camera, with video and for shooting a compelling scene. His post-workout and other videos on Instagram evidence a very keen eye. You can follow him on Instagram here. His brother is here.
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