Jon Wagner Quotations

We're going to get after it in practice and then be ready to go on Tuesday night. We're going to take a look at our injuries and see who can and can't go, and then go battle and try to get back up here next weekend.

We're banged up after the individual state tournament.. But these kids have been resilient all year long and we've battled through a lot this season.

We knew we would have tough some matches in the finals. But I thought that the kids wrestled hard. Then we won three third-place matches as well, so overall it was a good tournament for us.

We knew we were going to have a tough time in the championships. Not to say we were underdogs, but we knew we were up against some kids who had beaten us before. I thought all our guys wrestled well in those matches.

We're going up there and taking it one match at a time. Right now, we're just celebrating our first sectional.

Sean is not happy with himself right now. He thought he made some mistakes to lose that one, but he gets to go to sectionals and I'm sure he will get another chance at Ian there.

Morris is the same way. He got a kid that finished very high in the state and had a great season and he stepped up .

Chris had a great year and it ended here with another win.

He was a non-seeded regional kid and makes it all the way to the third-place match. He's a perfect example of how these kids have battled this year.

He had a protective brace on his wrist, and that really didn't allow him to use that hand at all. He's the best guy we have at that weight and we wanted to give him his chance. And he wrestled well, even with the disadvantage of the brace.

We're proud of that. I thought we needed to get 11 guys through to win the regional, and we had a chance to get all 14 through, but I'm very pleased getting 13 guys through to the sectional.

I thought Chris looked very impressive. He really goes after people, doesn't he?

Looking back on the sectional tournament, getting eight guys through was a good day. Now we are going to state with the mindset that just getting there is not enough, we want medals.

I thought Morris had a heck of a tournament. He beat some good kids to win this thing and looked really good.

That was a tough match. It was tough, both guys battled hard, Sean should be proud, but he's not. He's a competitor and he hates to lose. There's nothing I can say to him tonight, he knows what he has to do (today). He knows he is in position to get a medal if he wants it. It will be tough for him to get re-focused on third place, but that's what he has to do if he wants to go home with a medal (today).

That was a great match. Adam scored late to tie it up, but lost on a last second reversal. Adam wrestled well, it was just one of those things.

We had five guys in championship matches and that's the most we've ever had. You have to be happy with that.

We have a good shot at that, I think. We have to get through some tough teams up there. It's our first one in a long time because we have always run into some tough Granite City teams, we will see them next weekend.

We'll enjoy it for a couple of hours. But it's right back to practicing in the morning.

We need to have 11, 12 guys, at least, get through to the sectionals. Ideally, we'd get all 14 of them through and I think we can do that if we all do what we have been doing all season long. The top three in each class get through and I think it's a good goal to get all of them through.

We had a really good day today. The 10 kids that we had advance came in and really banged. It was a team effort. We feel real good about it. The kids are sore and banged up, but they competed real hard.

We've had a good start and we're wrestling well right now. But there is still a long way to go.

We had a great day. A.J. came back strong after losing yesterday. When Sean puts his mind to it and competes, he's capable of beating anyone.

We kind of took it on the chin for a few years. But this is two in a row now and I think it shows a change in the quality of wrestlers in Metro-East has now.

We control our own destiny in the conference, and that's all you can ask. But it's not going to be easy. East St. Louis has some very good wrestlers. They may not have the depth that we have, but they're a solid team.

Adam was winning by one late, but he was called for stalling to tie the match. It was kind of a tough call right there. Then their guy escapes in overtime to get the win. You can't fault Adam there. He wrestled a very good match.

They (St. Rita) are a very good team. There's no doubt about that. We got off to a rocky start against them. But to our kids' credit, they fought back. They gave it everything they had.

They have been in our regional a lot and we have not been able to get past them. This time, we won't see them until the sectional.

It's a big jump from sectionals to state. There are a lot of tough wrestlers up in the Chicago area. We're going to go up there and battle and see what we can come back with. Some of the guys wrestled great just to get there, but they all have the mindset to bring home a medal, so that's what we're going up there to fight for.

It's a big honor for me and the kids. It should be a lot of fun.

It's been a long time that we've waited for this chance. We have had good teams in the past, and we just could not get past Granite. Hopefully we have one more good weekend in us.

Daryl had a real tough road today. But he beat a tough kid from Mascoutah and came back and wrestled real well in the next match.

That just killed Matt's momentum. Picture yourself thinking you won a match and then having it taken from you, he didn't recover from that and it cost him.

It was a good effort. I thought we got banged around a little bit at some classes in the early rounds, but kids rebounded well and had good tournaments.

It's would be real tough to catch Oak Park. But tomorrow's another day. It's kind of a day for individuals. We still want to finish as high as possible as a team, but it's more about individuals bringing home medals at this point.

It's real nice to see Morris get through. He's had some ups and downs this season. He's a determined kid and it showed with that last win.

The kids really competed their tail ends off. Our goal was to bring home some hardware, and that's what we did. We came up a little short of winning it, but that doesn't take anything away from what these kids have accomplished this season.

The kid Sean wrestled, I think is ranked third or fourth in Missouri, so he's a quality wrestler. Sometimes you have to win the close ones, and Sean did that tonight.

I'm really proud of Daryl. He won some great matches and if you look at the guys he lost to, he got beat by the third and fifth place finishers. So he's losing good matches to quality guys. He lost to the third place guy 9-2, but it was 4-2 with a few seconds left when he made a move and got turned. He'll be back.

I had the head referee come over after the match and say the wrong call was made, but it didn't do Matt any good. Our kid has his hand raised as the winner and it's taken away from him. That's wrong. It's tough to win a match in overtime when that happens.

He stepped in and really wrestled well. I think that's a perfect example of our depth this season. We've had our share of injuries this season, but guys have stepped up and performed whenever they were asked.

I didn't know what to expect from him. But for him to tech fall is a credit to the kind of athlete he is.

You can't ask for much more than that.

The kids all wrestled hard all day long. We had some tough matches that we won, some we lost and some bad breaks along the way. But I'm proud of what we did up here today and tomorrow we still have a shot at some medals.

A.J. wrestled really well against a kid who placed in the state. It was a good win for him.