Freshman Tyler Santiago and senior Joey DeMeo steal the spotlight at the maroon vs. gold wrestle-offs with a 144-pound match decided in the sudden victory period

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

An overtime match between freshman Tyler Santiago and senior Joey DeMeo at the maroon vs. gold wrestle-offs Tuesday night demonstrated how tough it is to earn one of the 14 spots in the varsity wrestling lineup.
DeMeo, strong and savvy, and Santiago, a confident, experienced freshman, projected to have a closely contested match at 144 pounds and that’s exactly how it played out.
At the end of the three two-minute periods, the score was deadlocked, 1-1,forcing a one-minute sudden victory period, wherein the first wrestler to score points wins.
In the event of a scoreless sudden victory period, a match then shifts to a pair of 30-second tiebreakers and the wrestler with the most points at the end of those wins. If it’s still tied, a final 30-second period called an ultimate tiebreaker determines the winner. The first wrestler who scores in the period wins. If nobody scores, the offensive wrestler (the one on top at the beginning of the period) is declared the winner. Which wrestler is that? The first one to score a point in regulation chooses whether to start the ultimate tiebreaker on top or bottom.
It didn’t come to that in this entertaining match. Santiago pinned DeMeo 30 seconds into the SV period.
The two wrestlers go at it daily in practice and based on those matches, DeMeo came into the wrestle-off as the first seed, Santiago second, so Santiago had to win a match to advance to the final vs. his daily wrestling partner.
This one had even more juice to it than their normal tussles because there were fans in the stands, the lights were dimmed and the spotlight from the new scoreboard shined on them.
Santiago, who has been wrestling for five years, explained the move that gave him the victory and why he chose to go to it.
“It was an outside single and then I turned it into a double,” Santiago said. “He was heavy on his toes, and he doesn’t turn his hips when he sprawls, so I figured going outside would give me more of a chance of getting more pressure up into him.”
More than meets the eye goes into why wrestlers move the way they do during a match.
“You have to think about where their feet are placed, how heavy they are, where they have their hands, which foot they have forward, and you kind of have to like feel them out and see what moves they have so you can counterattack those,” Santiago said.
Having a pair of wrestlers so evenly matched at the same weight and three years apart in a lot of ways is ideal.
“I feel like us wrestling with each other, it’s created a better bond and it creates more intensity in the wrestling matches,” Santiago said. “So, overall it comes with better outcomes with both of us getting better.”
Since the end of middle school season a year ago, and well before that season, Santiago has spent a lot of time in the wrestling room as part of the Chesterton wrestling club.
“Before I even came into this season I knew that this would be a tough match tonight,” Santiago said.
The Trojans open the season at the Red Hawk Super Duals at Goshen on Nov. 28 and 29. Fifth-year Chesterton head coach Andrew Trevino said he anticipates bringing both of his 144-pound wrestlers to the season to see how they both do against competition outside the school before determining who gets the spot in the lineup. It’s possible they could wrestle-off repeatedly throughout the season. Having one move up a weight also is always an option, depending on how the rest of the lineup shakes out.
Santiago’s brother Damien, a freshman student at Valparaiso University, made it to semi-state for the Trojans on a call-back as a senior. He took up wrestling as a junior in high school after seeing how much success Tyler was enjoying at it.
Damien watched Tuesday’s match from behind the Chesterton bench.
“He’s always been my inspiration in wrestling. He’s always done great,” Damien said. “And I’ve actually looked up to him, even though he’s my younger brother. I like the way he wrestles, the way he flows. I wouldn’t put any limits on him, but he still has a lot of room to grow, especially with his stamina. He gets gassed out really easily. He’s in great shape, but he still needs to work on his stamina.”
Tyler doesn’t put any limits on himself either, simply because he’s a freshman. He said that he gained confidence wrestling in a tournament during the offseason when he defeated an opponent at 138 pounds who had placed at semi-state last season.
“My goal is to make it to semi-state and then see what I can do from there,” he said.
When Santiago wrestles at Goshen, nobody will be rooting harder for him than DeMeo. And when DeMeo wrestles there Santiago will be his biggest backer. They respect how difficult it is to win a spot. It will be interesting to track how the season unfolds for both wrestlers.