The North Suburban Conference wrestling meet featured many familiar faces. But one of Saturday’s title bouts included a wrestler who is not yet a household name.
When 152-pound Vernon Hills sophomore Dylan Geick took the mat for Saturday’s championship match with Antioch sophomore Patrick Schoenfelder, it marked just the eighth bout of Geick’s high school career. By contrast, the match was Schoenfelder’s 40th of the season.
“People are like, ‘Who is this kid? Where has he come from?’ ” Cougars coach Jerry Miceli said. “It’s fun to see.”
There’s a simple reason for why Geick is so unknown — he has barely competed as a high school wrestler. Geick did not attend Vernon Hills as a freshman due to disciplinary reasons. He was homeschooled and did not wrestle for any high school.
During the school year, he trained at Poeta Training Academy in Lake Forest. Last July, he competed in the USA Wrestling Cadet Freestyle Nationals in Fargo, North Dakota. Geick finished runner up in the 138-pound weight class. Geick is a wrestling talent with a style that is both aggressive and cerebral. He said the year away from high school was challenging, but also prepared him for his eventual return.
“It was a different atmosphere. The pace isn’t the same,” Geick said. “I had to think a year down the line. There was a lot of learning to do.”
Miceli added: “He gets in some scrambling situations, and he’s pretty comfortable. He has some maturity.”
Geick enrolled at Vernon Hills last fall, but a glitch in transferring his freshman year grades made him ineligible for sports competition during the first semester. Still, he was allowed to practice with the Cougars.
“That was instrumental. Just to get back on the mat the way I did, to be able to push the pace and keep that up,” he said.
More Top Picks Wyze Lock
Cleared for competition in January, Geick’s first match as a Cougar was against Round Lake on Jan. 23. He won. The next day, he won all three of his matches at the Dundee-Crown Invitational. As Geick entered the conference tournament, his circumstances — he was the only undefeated wrester at 152 pounds, but he had also wrestled the fewest matches — were unique.
After Geick won his first two matches at the conference tournament, buzz began to build. In Saturday’s semifinals, he dominated Stevenson senior Corey Weil, winning by a 19-3 technical fall. And although Geick’s meteoric rise leveled off in the finals, where he was pinned by Schoenfelder in the third period, consider the conference tournament his coming-out party.
He will not enter the Class 2A Vernon Hills Regional on Saturday as an unknown, but rather as a rising star.
“[Conference] was great, but my goals are a lot higher than that,” Geick said. “Hopefully I’ll get a rematch [with Schoenfelder] and it won’t look the same.”
Miceli added: “He’s getting his second opportunity, and he’s not taking anything for granted.”
As a team, Vernon Hills finished in eighth place at the conference tournament (Stevenson won). Senior Joe Blitstein finished runner-up at 285 pounds. At 138, senior Peter VanderBloomer earned a third-place medal. Junior Jeff Echeverria was the Cougars’ other medal winner, finishing in sixth at 132 pounds.
Jon Kerr is a freelancer for Pioneer Press.