Triton College Trojans Place Four Wrestlers at 34th Art Kraft Memorial Tournament
Triton College hosted the 34th Annual Art Kraft Memorial Wrestling Tournament on Saturday, with the Trojans placing four wrestlers in the event, including two who finished third in their weight classes. Fabian Salazar (above) was one of the two to earn third place.
RIVER GROVE, Ill. — The Triton College wrestling team made the most of their only home event of the season with their best overall showing to date at the 34th Annual Art Kraft Memorial Tournament on Dec. 13 in River Grove.
Watch highlights from this weekend’s tournament.
The Trojans had a season-high four place-winners:
- Keygan Jennings (141 lbs) – 3rd place
- Fabian Salazar (149 lbs) – 3rd place
- Everett McClelland (197 lbs) – 6th place
- Jase Salin (165 lbs) – 6th place
"The Art Kraft is usually a good indicator of how much we've grown the first half of the season," said Triton head coach Chris Butz. "There were a lot of positives. We saw great improvement overall as a team, especially with our offense, moving our feet, getting to our attacks and just being more tenacious."
Nine Triton wrestlers won at least one match at the Art Kraft, benefiting from an extra week of practice leading up to the tournament. In the past, the team would compete in a tournament the weekend before the Art Kraft, but this year Butz opted to focus on refining techniques with his squad.
"Having those two weeks after the district duals (on Nov. 22) off from competition really helped us," Butz said. "The guys were able to get out of a competitive mindset, get into the lab at practice for us to work on the things they needed to fix."
The Trojans started seeing the results of that work at the Art Kraft and will have another extended break with the holidays to continue building. The team is next in action on Saturday, Jan. 3, at the Fred Johnson Duals hosted by Augustana College.
"We are building at the right pace," Butz said. "The Art Kraft was a great team day for us and I'm excited to see how we continue to grow at our next set of competitions."
Follow Triton Athletics on Twitter @TritonTrojans1 or Instagram @Triton College Athletics for updates and highlights.
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Media Contacts:
Melissa Ramirez Cooper | melissacooper@triton.edu | 708-456-0300, Ext. 3496
Hunter Oberst | hunteroberst@triton.edu | 708-456-0300, Ext. 3820
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