RMS Wrestling Team Finishes Season Undefeated
At the DeKalb Tournament, RMS eighth-grader Kaden Fetterolf beat the defending undefeated state champion and won the Outstanding Wrestler award.
The Rotolo Middle School wrestling team only flew W’s this season.
“We went 10-0 in duals and won all three tournaments we were in,” said RMS head wrestling coach Greg Schroeder. “It’s the first time this has happened at Rotolo.”
The team won dual meets by an average of 51 points and won the Hubble tournament by 51 points, the conference tournament by 80 points, and the DeKalb tournament by 40 points.
“We beat the defending IESA champions by 80 points at the DeKalb tournament, which included 20 teams,” said Mr. Schroeder. “Those are huge margins of victory for wrestling. We are now considered the best middle school wrestling team in the state.”
This year’s DeKalb tournament featured two of the top IESA teams: DeKalb (finished second in state last year) and Homer Glen (the defending state champions).
“We went into the final round with a 21-point lead and finished 40 points over DeKalb this year. We had many wrestlers in the placing matches and eight in the finals with tough matches. We ended up going eight for eight in the finals with one of our wrestlers, Kaden Fetterolf, beating a defending undefeated state champion and winning the ‘Outstanding Wrestler’ award.”
This red hot team was big, too, with 60 wrestlers, including three girls.
“We had kids that really bought in and decided that they were going to get even better with hard work,” said Mr. Schroeder. “They were a very unselfish group.”
Three wrestlers went undefeated this season: sixth-grader Jack Duraski, seventh-grader Aidan Huck, and eighth-grader Jack Brozny.
Mr. Schroeder and the assistant coaches John Canfield and Chris Baima worked hard to foster a positive environment this winter. (Fun fact: Mr. Canfield and Mr. Baima coached Mr. Schroeder back when he was a wrestler in high school and middle school!)
“On Mondays, we chose four wrestlers of the week and shared why they were chosen,” explained Mr. Schroeder. “They were each given an ‘Always earned, never given’ gold T-shirt and a wrestler-of-the-week medal and their photos hung proudly in the wrestling room. We had karaoke Fridays and planned team events during the season.”
One of the team events was a trip to Northwestern University to watch Northwestern wrestle Virginia Tech. On the way home, they stopped at the original Lou Malnati’s in Lincolnwood for pizza.
Field trip! RMS wrestlers went to the Northwestern vs. Virginia Tech wrestling match where they got to meet the Northwestern wrestlers.
Congrats to the RMS powerhouse wrestling team on an outstanding season!
