SERGIO & CO.
Script stays same for Lemley, changes for Chesterton as Trojans win semistate title
Chesterton sophomore Sergio Lemley said it was “unfinished business.”
The Trojans’ 120-pounder won a state title in Illinois as a freshman but has a family score to settle during his first high school wrestling season in Indiana.
“I’ve got some unfinished business since my brother lost in the finals of his junior year,” Lemley said. “So, I’m just trying to redeem that. I started wrestling because of him.”
Lemley’s older brother, Diego, was a state runner-up at 160 in 2017 before moving on to compete at Indiana University.
Sergio Lemley continued his quest for a state title at Saturday’s East Chicago Semistate, winning the championship match at 120.
Lemley, who’s ranked No. 1 at 120 by IndianaMat, won 3-1 over Crown Point sophomore Logan Frazier, ranked No. 2 at 120. At last week’s regional, Lemley won an even closer 3-2 decision over Frazier.
“He’s a really good competitor,” Lemley said of Frazier. “He’s separated himself from the other Indiana competitors. Every time I know there’s going to be a matchup waiting, I’m working extra hard during the week.”
That championship match was one of four that saw a Chesterton wrestler face a fellow Duneland Athletic Conference opponent from Crown Point.
The Trojans won all four, leading Chesterton to its first semistate title since 2017 with a team score of 197.5 points, topping runner-up Crown Point’s 182.
Crown Point defeated Chesterton 211.5-210 at last week’s regional meet but Chesterton flipped that result by avenging several regional defeats, including senior Brock Ellis at 152.
Ellis, ranked No. 6, scored a 9-6 decision over Crown Point senior Javen Estrada, who was ranked No. 3.
“It’s a relief off of my shoulders,” Ellis said. “I’ve been training for this one guy basically the entire season and just got it done this time.”
Ellis pointed out that Saturday’s win avenged just one of his two losses to Estrada this season, adding he hoped to get a chance to erase the second one at next weekend’s state finals.
“I wanted to go undefeated,” Ellis said. “I still have another one to give to him. I hope to see him again on Saturday night so we can tie it up.”
Along with Ellis and Lemley, Chesterton had five other individual champions in freshman Hayden DeMarco at 113, sophomore Aidan Torres at 132, senior Ethan Kaiser at 145, senior Gavin Layman at 182 and senior Evan Bates at 220.
La Porte sophomore Ashton Jackson won the title at 106, while the other three local champions hailed from Crown Point in sophomore Sam Goin at 126, junior Jesse Mendez at 138 and sophomore Orlando Cruz at 160.
Winning a semistate title was another step forward for Cruz, who was a semistate runner-up in 2020 as part of a freshman season that ended with an appearance in the state meet.
But Cruz had his sights set higher than just reaching state, and he spent the offseason working toward that goal.
“Last year, I had the freshman wrestling issue of struggling to get up from being on bottom,” he said. “I wrestled with the guys on our team and our coaches and they’ve really helped, showing me what I needed to work on last summer if I wanted to make bigger strides.”
After the first semistate title of his career, Cruz believes he’s on that path now.
“It’s one step up the ladder from last year,” he said.