Illinois sectional wrestling: Raiders’ Steinkamp, Chargers’ Belshaw and Saukees’ Davis fight way to state berths

Curtis Steinkamp wouldn’t be denied. Lance Belshaw is blazing a trail. And Mason Davis gets his name on the board.

Each one of them gets to wrestle at the state tournament, too.

Steinkamp, the Quincy Notre Dame 126-pound senior, lost in the semifinals of the Class 1A Stanford Olympia Sectional on Saturday, but rebounded to dominate two matches in the wrestlebacks and finish third.

Belshaw, the Illini West 145-pound senior, knocked off the No. 1 seed in the Stanford Olympia Sectional and reached the championship match, finishing as the runner-up while earning his 100th career victory in the process.

Davis, the Pittsfield 170-pound senior, lost his opening match at the Class 1A Vandalia Sectional, but rallied with three consecutive victories by pin and took fourth to add his name to the list of state qualifiers that hangs on the wall in the Pittsfield wrestling room.

They will wrestle at State Farm Center in Champaign beginning Thursday.

Steinkamp opened the sectional with a 5-4 decision over Clinton’s Cayden Poole and beat El Paso-Gridley’s Tyler Roth 10-3 to reach the semifinals. He suffered a 6-2 loss to Illini Bluffs’ Ian O’Connor, but Steinkamp came back with a 12-2 major decision over Ridgeview’s Payton Campbell.

In the third-place match, Steinkamp scored a takedown and a three-point nearfall of Oakwoof Fithian’s Pedro Rangel in the first period and parlayed it into a 5-0 victory.

Steinkamp carries a 41-5 record to the state tournament.

After an 18-3 technical fall in his opening match, Belshaw drew top-seeded Dax Gentes of El Paso-Gridley in the second round and led 4-0 going to the third period. Gentes scored on escape, a takedown and penalty point to tie the match. Neither wrestler scored in the first three overtimes, and Belshaw chose to start the fourth overtime on the bottom and escaped for the 5-4 victory.

He followed it with a 17-2 technical fall of Stanford Olympia’s Bentley Wise in the semifinals before suffering a 7-2 loss to Canton’s Andrew Hedges in the championship bout.

Belshaw owns a 32-7 record.

Davis drew an opening-round bye at Vandalia and got pinned in 2:33 by Tolono Unity’s Kyus Root to get knocked into the wrestlebacks. There he started a pin train, sticking Carterville’s Chris Bates in 1:55, pinning Benton’s Wyatt Upton in 4:46 and finishing the run by flattening Carlyle’s Owen Birkner in 2:00 to reach the third-place match.

Davis took an injury default, allowing Toledo Cumberland’s Iysten Syfert to take third.

Davis head to state with a 30-7 record.

Two other QND wrestlers — freshman Oliver Moore at 106 and freshman Ryan Darnell at 220 — were eliminated in the wrestlebacks.

Quincy High School sent four wrestlers to the Class 3A Granite City Sectional and they each lost their first two matches and were eliminated.