Lost in the excitement of last night's Illinois basketball win over Northwestern was an even more impressive performance by an Illini athlete on the Wildcat campus.  Senior 184-pounder John Dergo won the Midlands title last night in Evanston by defeating three two-time All-Americans, including an 11-9 overtime win over American University's Mike Cannon, ranked #2 in the country, in a classic championship match.

Dergo, a senior from Morris, is a three-time NCAA qualifier for the Illini, but has yet to place in the national tournament.  It appears that may change this season, as Dergo has already racked up impressive wins over Cannon, #1 Max Askren of Missouri, #9 Mike Pucillo of Ohio State and Cornell's #16 Steve Bosak.  Dergo's win over Askren at the Midlands tournament avenged an earlier loss in a dual meet last month.  Dergo is now a sparkling 18-2 on the season, and his only other loss came to Boise State's #4 Kirk Smith in the championship match in Las Vegas on 12/5.  Dergo was ranked 6th in the country this week, and look for him to jump up in the rankings again next week, perhaps as high #2 with his wins over Cannon and Askren.  It would probably be difficult for him to jump over Smith with their head-to-head result in Las Vegas.

Several other Illini had good performances in Evanston this week.  Jimmy Kennedy, wrestling unattached because he's redshirting this season, placed second in the 141 pound bracket, falling to Maryland's Alex Krom in the final.  Kennedy's results didn't count toward Illinois' team score because he was wrestling unattached.  Also wrestling at 141, junior Ryan Prater placed 5th, defeating two nationally-ranked wrestlers before falling to Krom in the semifinals.  Also wrestling well this week was senior Patrick Bond, who was unseeded in the tournament, but placed sixth after notching wins over nationally-ranked Logan Brown of Purdue and Missouri's Brent Haynes. 

One Illini who didn't wrestle as well as he would have liked this week was sophomore Jordan Blanton at 174 pounds.  He entered the tournament as the #4 seed, but fell to #5 seed Duke Burk of Iowa State in the quarterfinals, before losing another one-point match in the consolation bracket to #3 seed Luke Manual of Purdue.  Blanton has been a bit banged up in the early part of the season, missing the tournament in Las Vegas before returning to the mat on 12/12 in the dual meets against Findlay and McKendree. 

As a team, the Illini finished 10th out of 54 teams, which isn't too bad considering they were missing starters B.J. Futrell at 125 and Eric Terrazas at 149.  Both wrestlers hope to be back in the lineup for the dual meet against SIUE on Friday 1/8 at 7pm.

One programming note: if you're interested in getting an early idea of what Gonzaga will bring to the United Center on Saturday, WDWS will be carrying the Gonzaga-Oklahoma basketball game tonight.  Pregame coverage starts at 8:30pm tonight.  The game is being played in Seattle, which means a long trip and short turnaround for the Bulldogs.

Thanks to everyone who read this blog in 2009.  I've enjoyed talking with several of you via e-mail.  As always, if you've got any questions or comments for me, just send them to the e-mail address below.  Happy New Year!

bmoline@wdws.com