The Chesterton Trojans had a little extra motivation and parlayed it into three championships and 10 Regional berths Saturday at the LaPorte Wrestling Sectional.

“We had a pretty solid day all around,” Chesterton Asst. Coach Jason Cook said. “We had a lot of kids step up in some places and that was nice to see. We have 10 guys moving on and that’s a pretty good showing. We’ll check out the match-ups and see if we can’t get all 10 to Semistate.

“We’ve got guys that can do some big things the next couple of weeks.”

The Trojans started their championship run at 125 pounds when Zack Thornton beat Knox’s Kyle Hernandez 8-3.

“It was exciting to come out and win a tournament,” Thornton said. “Today was the start through a one month process. It was nice to get this week out of the way.”

Thornton ran through the tournament with a 47-second victory over North Judson’s Ryan Campbell and a 3:28 win over Nathan King of New Prairie.

“Zack was pretty dominant,” Cook said. “He had a tough kid from Knox in the Finals and he just did what he does well. We can count on him.”

Chris Katsafaros won all three of his matches by fall en route to the title at 130.

“It was quite easy today actually,” Katsafaros said. “I’ve been trying to do all the new moves that coach has taught us. I just went out and worked as hard as I could.”

Katsafaros beat Tyler Woodrick of LaPorte (1:45), Dakota Rudynski of John Glenn (5:07) and Justin Miranda of Michigan City (2:27).

“Katsafaros winning a Sectional as a freshman with the teams that are here is pretty impressive,” Cook said. “He scored a lot of bonus points for us as a team and you can’t ask for any more than that.”

The final title for the Trojans came at 152 pounds when Brandon Garvey beat Dillan Escobedo of New Prairie 10-2.

“I’ve never seen someone beat someone else so bad that they didn’t want to wrestle more than Brandon did in the Finals,” Cook said. “He couldn’t have wrestled better. It was picture perfect.”

Garvey won his opening round by forfeit before besting Michigan City’s Cody Miranda by fall in 3:59.

“This is the first tournament I’ve ever won,” Garvey said. “This was pretty cool. Both of the kids I wrestled today were kids that had beat me before.”

Other Trojans that advanced to next Saturday’s LaPorte Regional included Joe Kelly (135), Will Butz (140), Chris Copollo (145), Anthony Quiroz (160), Tony Sanchez (171), Sevante Yates (189) and Frank Raudry (Hwt).

“As a team, we really came through even though someone was missing,” Thornton said. “I think emotionally we were ready for it and everybody gave their all.”

1. Portage, 235; 2. Chesterton, 216; 3. LaPorte, 203.5; 4. New Prairie, 154; 5. Knox, 136; 6. John Glenn, 112; 7. Michigan City, 100; 8. North Judson, 76.

103 -- Tyler Kuzdas (L) tech. fall Andrew Ledford (NJ), 18-3. 112 -- Brandon Coppinger (P) tech. fall Kaleb McCallum (JG), 18-3. 119 -- Danny Bradley (K) dec. Damien Torres (P), 4-3. 125 -- Zack Thornton (C) dec. Kyle Hernandez (K), 8-3. 130 -- Chris Katsafaros (C) pin Justin Miranda (MC), 2:27. 135 -- Luis Acuna (P) dec. Devann Biddle (K), 10-1. 140 -- Nick Santana (L) dec. Chris Felske (MC), 4-3. 145 -- Mike Torres (P) dec. Joe Zigler (NP), 15-4. 152 -- Brandon Garvey (C) dec. Dillan Escobedo (NP), 10-2. 160 -- Sean McMurray (P) dec. Anthony Quiroz (C), 7-1. 171 -- Jimmy Krause (K) dec. Jeff Jurczak (NP), 11-3. 189 -- Aaron King (P) dec. Dustin Pape (L), 7-4. 215 -- Ray Wajda (NJ) pin Logan Fischer (P), 3:38. Hwt. -- Greg Wedow (L) dec. Frank Raudry (C), 7-1.

103 -- Andrew Frey (JG) dec. Blake Savchick (NP), 8-6. 112 -- Mario Huerta (MC) dec. Aaron Kuzdas (L), 11-10. 119 -- Kenny Smith (MC) dec. Cody Dubich (NP), 10-8. 125 -- Frank Mancuso (L) pin Nathan King (NP), 3:54. 130 -- Niko Martinez (P) dec. Dakota Rudyinski (JG), 19-6. 135 -- Joe Kelly (C) dec. Kyle Stachowski (L), 11-2. 140 -- Will Butz (C) dec. Tyler Williams (P), 4-2. 145 -- Isaac Krohn (JG) pin Chris Copollo (C), 2:57. 152 -- Drew Keil (P) dec. Cody Miranda (MC), 6-4. 160 -- Niles Goodman (NP) dec. Alex Stewart (L), 3-0. 171 -- Tony Sanchez (C) pin. Zach Smith (L), 2:44. 189 -- Sevante Yates (C) dec. John Kampf (NP), 5-1. 215 -- Tyree Wright (MC) dec. Joe Wegiel (L), 9-2. Hwt. -- Mark Devyak (P) pin Quentin Barnhart (NJ), 1:27.

Posted 2/1/2010