By Mark Gregory
Editorial Director
@Hear_The_Beard
mark@buglenewspapers.com
Matt Ramos and Baylor Fernandes are headed together to wrestle next year at the University of Minnesota, so it would only be fitting if the two future Golden Gophers walked out of the University of Illinois’ State Farm Center with gold medals around their necks – and that is exactly what happened.
The pair led a quartet of Lockport medalists at the IHSA Class 3A wrestling meet.
At 120 pounds, Ramos defeated Noah Surtin of Edwardsville 8-4 for his first state championship, while Fernandes pinned Hunter Yohn of Quincy in a Class 3A 160-pound state final record 1 minute, 10 seconds.
“I gave it all I had out there,” Fernandes said. “It was whatever happens, happens and I guess I pinned him.”
Yohn got the first points of the match on takedown right off the whistle, but that did not sit well with Fernandes.
“That kind of made me mad and I kind of wanted to go pin him real bad after that,” he said. “The first two times I was down here, the stadium felt really big, but this felt like a normal tournament and I think that was the difference.”
After Ramos had won earlier in the evening, Fernandes became the 11th state champion in Porter history, a goal he had always had.
“We have a wall and you either get a big picture on the wall for winning state or a little picture for placing,” he said. “And I did not want that small picture up there anymore.”
To get to the final, Fernandes (35-4) pinned Brock Pfeifer of Lincoln-Way West in 1:48, defeated Barington’s Luke Rasmussen 11-4 and earned a 12-4 major decision over Brad Gross of Marmion Academy.
For Ramos, it was his third state medal becoming just the eighth three-time medalist in Lockport history after Anthony Molton reached that mark in the third-place match.
“That was amazing,” said Ramos, who lost to Surtin in the sectional a week earlier. “I learned thing from that match and those little things I learned and worked on in practice every day. I wasn’t really dominant last week and I had to be the predator in the match and be dominant.”
In the opening match, Ramos defeated Nico Bolivar of Oak Park-River Forest 10-4 before earning a technical fall over Warren’s Cameron Domke in 4:43 and defeated Michael Jaffe of Marmion Academy 6-5.
At 126, Molton earned his third medal in school history, placing third with a 5-1 win over Joshua Ogunsanya of OPRF.
He opened the tournament with an 11-4 win over Brandon Murphy of Libertyville and an 8-1 win over Ogunsanya.
He then fell in the semifinal to Montini’s Dylan Ragusin 3-2 before bouncing back with a 2-0 win over Noah Mis of Mt. Carmel.
The fourth medal for Lockport went to Kaleb Thompson, who as a junior is wrestling for his high school team for the first time after transferring from Montini.
At 106 pounds, he won the third-place match by disqualification over Jameir Castleberry of Proviso East, however, Thompson was dominating the match up to the point of disqualification.
In the opening match, Thompson won by 2-1 decision over Jordan Blew of Mt. Carmel.
He then defeated Sawyer Nash of Warren by a 16-3 major decision.
In the semifinal, he fell to Nick Gonzalez of Montini 1-0, but bounced back with a 6-3 win over Ronan Schuelke of Glenbard North to get in the third-place match.
The 2019 tournament is the 12th time in school history that Lockport has placed multiple wrestlers on the medal stand and fifth time the Porters have had at least four medalists.