Senior James Edmond emerges as the new conference champion for Niles North at the CSL Wrestling Conference Tournament.
The tournament was hosted by Niles North on January 24th and 25th. The Vikings finished in third place with 127.5 points, getting edged out by Deerfield who dominated with five conference champs and 269 points. North played fantastic as a team, losing a few hard fought matches throughout the tournament.
Last year James was unable to compete due to a knee injury, which only motivated him more to come back and compete this year. This has been a huge comeback year for the heavyweight, as James finished the regular season with a 23-9 record. He played a huge role this year as the team struggled, lacking a 285 pound wrestler.
“Going into the season I really didn’t have any high expectations for myself since I missed my junior year in wrestling. I really just went in trying to help my team because they suffered because they didn’t have a heavyweight,” James said.
James was the last piece needed to complete this well balanced lineup. In the tournament, James defeated both Anthony Morris from Evanston Township High School and Andy Kopplin from Maine South High School to reach the finals. In the championship match, he had a vigorous match up against Glenbrook South High School’s Denatra Moshi. When the match entered the sudden death portion of overtime, James had an escape to come out on top as the new conference champion.
This isn’t the last step for the team, as they look forward to regionals. The whole team will compete, and the best individuals will move on if they qualify for sectionals.
“Our team is in the running (for regionals) and I expect all of us to come out of regionals and make it into sectionals. We were a very young team but we have really good wrestlers all around,” James said.
The expectations are high for this team, and as we look forward, they’re preparing for the regional tournament at Glenbrook South high school. Go out and support the Vikings, the tournament starts at 9 am Saturday, February 8th.
Good luck wrestling and Go Vikings!
