MINOOKA — Moments after the Minooka wrestling team opened up the Southwest Prairie Conference portion of its schedule by beating Romeoville 66-9, Indians coach Jeff Charlebois expressed his unhappiness over the win.
"I told the kids the other day that I'm never going to be happy. There's always going to be something to improve on," Charlebois said. "We won a state championship here but it's not like as a coaching staff we've walked out 100 percent happy. You can always find things to improve upon."
Charlebois is back with the Indians replacing Paige Schoolman after he spent the last two years as the head coach of the Oswego Panthers.
Against the Spartans on Thursday, Minooka senior Joe Koenig was one of those who felt that he could have wrestled better despite logging a 7-4 win.
"I didn't do the things I needed to do, but I pulled out a win, Koenig said. "There are some technique things that I was struggling with at the time."
Koenig was the lone senior in the lineup with a wrestling win, though Alex Lewan did get a forfeit win at 152.
So what was the message that Koenig got from Charlebois?
"Keep our heads up and to work hard and we're going to get where we need to be," he said. "Overall as a team we need to work on our technique and keep getting better."
The Indians got wins at every weight against Romeoville except for the 126 and 132-pound weight classes. At 106 K.J. Minor won by forfeit, at 113 Jake Potts won 6-2, at 120 Michael Chernovic won by forfeit, at 138 Mike McNalty won by forfeit and at 145 Carson Oughton won by fall in :23 to complete the first half and give Minooka a 27-9 lead.
The wins just kept coming from there.
At 160 Jeff Klank won by fall in :52, Koenig got his win at 170, at 182 Nathan Gunn won by fall in 3:45, at 195 Josh Bouie won by all in 3:09, at 220 Erik Velazquez won by fall in :41 and at 285 David Newman won by fall in 5:56.
Charlebois said that it was a good win.
We can walk out of a dual and say 'that's a good win, a good win for the team', but as a coaching staff you have to be critical," he said. "That so the kids can know where they were good and where they can get more than that, and where was I bad and how can I fix it."
As mentioned, the dual kicked off the SPC portion of the team's schedule and it's something the Indians are taking serious. Koenig said that one of the goals for the Indians this year is to re-capture the league championship after Plainfield Central claimed it a year ago.
"We're out to come back and win it this year," he said. "It's going to take a lot of hard work."
And critical examination.
"Like I said to the kids after the dual, it's all about being critical of yourselves. It's easy to get caught up in the wins and losses, but when you win, you still have to be critical of yourself," Charlebois said. "Maybe they didn't perform tactically the way they could have. When you lose sometimes it's easy to say why. There are situation where you may win, but you'll win ugly. Everyone has to think to themselves I have to win here, here and here. That's what I emphasized tonight because we weren't crisp."
