Lemley earns fourth state championship

“The first day of practice freshman year, [Mt. Carmel Coach Alex Tsirtis] must have seen something in me,” Lemley said. “I was just expecting to go in and have fun, but he looked me dead straight in the eyes and said, ‘You can win state this year.’ I thought, if my coach believes in me, I can believe in myself.”

That was just the start for Lemley; in the next three years, he won three state championships.

Lemley won his fourth straight state crown on Feb. 18 with a 3-2 decision at 132 pounds over Prospect’s Will Baysingar.

The state meet was held Feb. 16-18 at the University of Illinois’ State Farm Center, the huge venue where Lemley closed out his dominant high school career.

“It’s all in my heart and my mind,” Lemley said. “I want to be the best, and I wanted to go wherever I could be the best. Besides that, everything took care of itself. I won as a freshman, and after that, it was just one after the other, two-time, then three-time and then four-time.”

Lemley won his freshman (113), junior (126) and senior titles at Mt. Carmel. He transferred as a sophomore to Chesterton High School in Indiana and won that state’s title at 120 pounds before transferring back to Mt. Carmel.

This year at state in a rematch of last year’s 126-pound championship, Lemley won a huge semifinal match over rival Vincent Robinson from Homewood-Flossmoor. Lemley came in as the two seed behind Baysingar after battling a shoulder injury that cost him several weeks of matches.

“I came in here and gave everything I had,” Lemley said. “Now, I’m going home with some hardware. I knew I’d go through some adversity and taking the hard road to get here. It’s something I’ll be back to look back on now.”

While Lemley, a University of Michigan recruit, made history with his fourth title, a younger teammate appears to be on the way to join him in the record books.

Mt. Carmel sophomore Seth Mendoza won the 113-pound state title with a dominant technical fall 1.5 in 5:46 (a 23-8 decision) over Homewood-Flossmoor’s Deion Johnson. He also won the 106-pound title as a freshman.

Despite the potential of being a four-time champ, Mendoza isn’t even remotely thinking about that.

“I have to take this into the next year. I have to take it one at a time,” Mendoza said. “A lot of people are like, ‘Hey, Seth, are you going to be a four-timer?’ I have to focus on this year and not think too far ahead. If I think too far ahead, maybe I’ll screw up somewhere and ruin that entire dream.”

The 113-pound title match was scoreless through the first round. But, in the second, Mendoza went on the attack, piling up takedowns on Johnson in almost surgical fashion.

He would get the takedown, allow Johnson to escape for a point each time, and then go to work all over again.

“I knew it was going to be exactly like that, neck and neck for the whole first period,” Mendoza said. “I just kept picking up the pace throughout the first. That’s what leads him to break in the late second and third period. That’s when I really pick it up.”

All business on the mats, even when the referee raised his arm to the crowd after the win, Mendoza said he’s always having fun when wrestling.

“Wrestling has always been my favorite sport. I just come out here to have fun,” Mendoza said. “I never put any pressure on myself. It’s the same thing with my teammates. We always encourage each other to get better every day but also have fun the entire time.”

Lemley and Mendoza were the top performers for the Caravan, but six Mt. Carmel wrestlers in total brought home state medals, including juniors Eddie Enright (152) and Colin Kelly (170), both state runners-up in their respective weight classes.

Kelly lost a 3-2 decision to McHenry’s Chris Moore in a rematch of last year’s state title match at 160 pounds that Kelly won. Moore tied it up late in the third round and scored the state-clinching point in the final 20 seconds.

“It definitely sucks. I really can’t say much,” Kelly said. “I feel like I just didn’t wrestle. If I had gone out there and let things fly a little bit more, I would feel better about myself right now. I feel like I didn’t try and put on a show. I was OK with it being a close match and having it come down to one takedown.”

Kelly wouldn’t let the heart-breaker take away from his impressive individual year.

“I feel like I’m a state champ, even though I lost,” Kelly said. “There’s work that can be done. Yeah, it’s great I have another year, but I want to make every year count.”

Enright (Mt. Greenwood) dealt with an elbow injury and a thumb injury over the last year. All the while, he stayed positive and confident in his abilities. He lost via a fall in 3:53 to West Chicago’s Nolan Allen.

“It’s the same takeaway, even if I had won,” Enright said. “All the work I put in leading up to this and making it count as much as I can, that’s big. I’ll use it as a little fire to burn inside of me for next year.”

It was a close match late in the second when Allen earned the pin in lightning-quick fashion.

“I’ve faced a lot of adversity this year, and this kind of puts the cherry on top of it all,” Enright said. “Next year, as hard as I worked this year, it’s going to be crazy the amount of work I’m going to be able to put in using this as motivation.”

Also medaling for the Caravan were juniors Damian Resendez (120) and Rylan Breen (182), who both finished in fifth place. Resendez defeated Prospect’s Joel Muehlenbeck with a pin in 4:38. Breen won a 3-0 decision.

Last year as a sophomore, Resendez was the state runner-up at 120.

He lost to Muehlenbeck in the first round this season.

“I was a little disappointed in my own performance because I could have done better than what I did accomplish,” Resendez said. “Overall, I’m thrilled to be part of this team. This team is something magical.”

He lost to Muehlenbeck in the first round at state this season but regrouped in the consolation bracket, ultimately getting some payback.

“Definitely cool coming back to beat him, a sweet taste of revenge,” Resendez said with a smile. “It was a tough loss to take. I couldn’t just sit there and dwell on it. I had to make weight the next morning and wrestle again.”

As a sophomore, Breen finished sixth at 182 pounds.

This year, Breen said, he felt a sense of urgency with the state experience under his belt.

“It’s more of a pressure because you’re a junior. You’ve got to do a little better,” Breen said. “I go out there and compete as hard as I can in every position. This is what I worked for all year. I came up a little short this year, but I’ll be back next year for sure and do even better.”

Breen lost in the state semifinals but rallied in the wrestle-backs early on Feb. 18 to reach the medal rounds.

“I obviously wanted to be in that championship match, but I came up short in the semis,” Breen said. “I sat for a while and re-watched the match a couple times to see what I did wrong. I just built off that and came in today with a positive attitude.

“I’m always looking to compete.”