The 2013-2014 season is nearly upon us! Some of our wrestlers never actually stopped wrestling...we've had boys compete during the summer, participate in pre-season wrestling programs, and continue to challenge themselves in pre-season tournaments.

Many of Batavia's older wrestlers participated in the Batavia Bulldog Spring Wrestling Club, learning and refining freestyle and Greco-Roman techniques with our technical coaches. The work really paid off for two Batavia wrestlers, who brought home 4th and 5th place medals from the Greco State tournament in New Lenox. Also, Batavia's Joel Shump, a 2013 BHS grad who will wrestle for Ohio University next season, qualified for Greco Nationals in Fargo, ND with his placing at a Regional qualifier in Waterloo, IA. Congrats to all of our wrestlers and coaches who took advantage of the spring season!

We are very proud to report that our club qualified five wrestlers to compete at the IKWF State Tournament in Rockford on March 8-9. The top 3 wrestlers from each of 8 sectional tournaments earn a spot to compete in this prestigious event! Our Senior division wrestlers also earned a 3rd place award at the sectional tournament against some of the toughest clubs in the state.

From our five state qualifiers, three of our Seniors brought home some hardware! Congratulations to Dylan Doranski, 5th place at Senior 79 lbs., Seth Winkle, 7th place at Senior 95 lbs., and Jordan Soto, 8th place at Senior 122 lbs. These boys have trained hard for many years to earn these awards, and they proved to be excellent representatives of the Batavia Wrestling Club! Great job to them, their coaches, and all of the people in the club who have supported them along the way!

In the same weekend, three of our former club members who are now wrestlers at Batavia High School competed at the Freshman/Sophomore State Tournament in Springfield and also brought home 4th, 6th, and 8th place medals. We continue to support Batavia wrestling at all levels and ages, and we are excited to see what next season brings. Keep your eye on Batavia wrestling...it's a growing program with a very bright future!

Congratulations to our Senior division wrestlers who earned a 2nd place team finish at the West Chicago Regional in St. Charles over the weekend! The club was just 1.5 points out of first place. We are so proud of their accomplishment!

We are excited to have 26 wrestlers moving on to Sectionals next Saturday in South Elgin. In these 12-man brackets, the top 3 wrestlers qualify for the state tournament in Rockford on March 8-9. We have several very strong contenders to move on to Rockford -- good luck to everyone who will be repren

We finished our regular season with about 40 competitors at the Dundee tournament. This was the last chance for some of our wrestlers to prove to themselves and everyone else how much they've learned this season, and their hard work really paid off with a lot of wins on the day! Great job to all of the boys who competed!

We are poised to have roughly 50 kids competing at the Regional tournament this Sunday at St. Charles East. The boys are practicing really hard, with some of them putting in four nights a week in preparation for a run at the state tournament. Good luck to all of our Pinners -- we know you'll make us proud.

The Jr. Bulldogs finished its season at the Hubble Tournament on Jan. 26. The team was only three points out of 1st heading into the place matches, with 11 boys in the championship round and 5 wrestling for 3rd place. But Franklin M.S. proved too much for Rotolo, who finished in 2nd place for the day.

The most exciting moment of the season came during Chris Jordan's championship match against Franklin. After several rounds of overtime, Chris finally managed to score, locking up a 1st place victory and capping an undefeated season!

Congratulations to all of the Jr. Bulldogs for a really successful and exciting year. The boys finished the season 12-2, with two tournament championships and one 2nd place showing. We wish the best of luck to all of the graduating 8th graders and look forward to following their careers at BHS. And to the younger boys...the torch has been passed! It's your turn to take the lead and carry on the tradition of powerhouse wrestling at R

We wish all the best to our previous technical coach, Nick Drendel, who was recruited away from us to go back to college competition at the University of Dubuque. We will be rooting for him next season!

To fill the spot left by Coach Nick, we're happy to welcome Conner and Clayton Bass as our new technical coaches. The "Bass brothers" graduated from Yorkville High School in 2012, and each was a two-time IHSA state placewinner. Coach Conner and Coach Clayton will be working with our older boys on Monday and Wednesday nights as they prepare for the state series in just a few weeks!

We sent nine boys down to Springfield last weekend to represent the Pinners in the IKWF Open, and we're excited to report that six of them brought home medals! Congratulations to our Elite division placewinners Seth Winkle (2nd), Dylan Doranski (3rd), and Jordan Soto (5th). In the Open division, Andy Posledni placed 2nd, John Conover placed 4th, and Andrew Esch placed 5th. Great job boys

By all accounts, it was another hugely successful year for our tournament. We hosted 700 wrestlers from about 20 clubs and earned high praise from many attendees, including coaches and parents, some of whom are new to the Pinners Classic but promised to be back. We know how to run things efficiently and fairly, and our volunteers got lots of praise for their friendliness throughout the day. Special thanks to all of our club members for pitching in. Whether your job was big or small, it was absolutely a key to our success and we are grateful. We were also so fortunate to have such strong support from the BHS wrestling team, with both wrestlers and their parents giving up a Sunday to give back to the club. It was one more day that reminded me what a special community we are part of!

It's looking like the date for the Pinners Classic 2014 will be Sunday, Jan. 12. Mark your calendars!

Our wrestlers were back in action after the Christmas break, and on Jan. 6 we had more than 50 kids competing in three separate tournaments.

Eight of our boys competed in the Midwest Classic in Tinley Park, taking away a 1st, 3rd, and 4th place on the day. The team placed 9th out of 37 teams, which was a great showing considering the few kids we had competing! We believe this is the first time one of our club members has brought home the championship from this elite tournament, so we are very proud!

We sent 35 rookies to a tournament in Aurora, and many of them wrestled their first matches ever! There were some nerves and scary moments for the youngest rookies, but they all pushed through and came away smiling at the end of the day. We have a huge group of tots and bantams this year, and if this tournament is any indication, the future is bright for our club!

We also sent 11 boys to the Mid-Winter Massacre in Arlington Heights, and they wrestled tough at a tough tournament!

After a flurry of new kids registering with us, we now have 91 local boys on our roster. This is roughly 20% more than we had last year, and we are really excited to see how the rest of the season unfolds. Many of our kids are setting their sights on Rockford in March. Stay tuned!