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By Rob Sherrill
Last year, Illinois completed the first sweep of USA Wrestling’s eight Cadet and Junior age-group national tournaments, winning the Cadet and Junior National Duals in both styles, then following up by winning all four team titles in the Cadet and Junior Nationals at Fargo, N.D.
On June 12-13 at Daytona Beach, Fla., Illinois took a step toward a repeat by earning a double title in the Cadet National Duals.
Illinois’ closest match during the week was its 43-31 victory over the Ohio Red team in the Greco-Roman final. They completed the double with a 49-27 victory over Pennsylvania Red in the freestyle final. In building a 14-0 overall record, Illinois won its remaining 12 duals by an average of 41 points.
Five Illinois wrestlers posted 7-0 records in the tournament: Peter Ogunsanya (94), Jason Renteria (113) and Kamal Bey (170) in Greco-Roman and Austin Gomez (113) and Bryan Ditchman (285) in freestyle.
Double Cadet National champion Daton Fix of Oklahoma went 13-0, posting six wins in Greco-Roman and seven in freestyle, as his team finished fourth in freestyle. Fix opened the freestyle tournament with a 35-second pin and won all 12 of his other matches by technical fall.
Making the most serious bid for Outstanding Wrestler honors, though, was two-time Utah champion Taylor LaMont (126) of Spanish Fork Maple Mountain. LaMont went 8-0 in each style, posting six technical falls in both, and had just two matches go the distance: a 2-0 victory over Lysander Mahilum of California in Greco-Roman and a 6-2 decision over two-time Indiana champion Chad Red of New Palestine in freestyle.
Ben Freeman (113) of Walled Lake (Mich.) Central had seven technical falls, allowing just one point, in building an 8-0 Greco-Roman record and Cameron Coy (138) of Harrison City (Pa.) Penn-Trafford was 13-0 in the two styles.
There were three newcomers who were impressive: