Sandburg graduated 11 starters and 351 wins from its back-to-back Class 3A state championship teams of 2011-12 and 2012-13.
One wouldn’t know it based on the result of Friday’s dual meet win over Lincoln-Way East.
Sandburg showed it’s still a contender by cruising to a 55-6 victory over the previously undefeated Griffins in a SouthWest Suburban Blue dual meet clash in Frankfort.
Sandburg improved to 6-0 3-0, while East fell to 3-1, 1-1.
“We do have a few seniors back, who provide great leadership,” Sandburg coach Eric Siebert said. “But a good nucleus is in our younger group. They’re pretty scrappy and they’re buying into the program.”
The Eagles started six seniors, but also got some big wins from two sophomores in the two closest matches of the evening. Those came from Louie Hayes, an 8-6 overtime victor over Jason Stokes at 106 pounds; and Colin Glascott, a 3-2 winner over Sean Sibley at 120.
Hunter Pindel recorded his sixth pin of the season for Sandburg at 195. Also recording pins for the Eagles were Brad Crnich (145), Patrick Brucki (170) and Matt Frostman (220). Other winners for Sandburg were Adrian Gutierrez (126), Moe Shuaibi (132), Ben Schneider (138), Johnny Pellegrino (152), Tom Slattery (160) and Jake Tablerion (182).
East received wins from Andrew Butz at 113 and Nick Allegretti, who improved to 4-0 at heavyweight.
“Sandburg is Sandburg,” East coach Tyrone Byrd said. “When they’re down they’re good. It’s not their state champion team, but it’s still a solid team and their attitude is that they want to get more state medals and hardware.
That’s what we aspire to be, too, but we have a long way to go. I’m not happy. My expectations of my boys is higher than those that we had.”
