Illinois Wrestling 2026-27: By the Numbers

Fifth in our state-by-state preview series: Illinois, and the series has saved its biggest single-season numbers for it. Last winter MatMetrics ingested 286,670 matches from 2,909 Illinois events involving 54,212 wrestlers — up from 235,276 matches and 48,440 wrestlers the year before, a 22 percent jump in match volume that outruns even Iowa's total from yesterday's piece. Two structural quirks to know going in: the IHSA crowns two boys team champions in each of its three classes every winter — one at the traditional individual-bracket state series and one at a separate dual-team series a week later — and its classes are set by fixed enrollment cutoffs rather than equal thirds, with a 1.65 multiplier pushing many private schools up a class. The girls, meanwhile, all wrestle in a single statewide class — for now. A realignment is on the table, and with the growth numbers below, it is easy to see why.

Because the girls side is where Illinois is moving fastest: 13,897 girls took the mat last season, up from 11,380 the year before — a 22 percent jump in year five of IHSA sanctioning. The headline chase belongs to Kaneland's Angelina Gochis, who last February became just the fifth Illinois girl to win three state titles and now returns at 120 pounds — 31-2 last season, top-five nationally at her weight — with a fourth on the line. Behind her the single-class bracket is stacked with unbeatens: Rock Island's Courtney Walls (35-0, the first state champion in school history, at 190), Clifton Central's Payton Temple (38-0 at 170, also a first for her school), and South Elgin's Allison Garbacz (42-0 at 155) all finished perfect title seasons. Roxana's Chloe Skiles is a two-time champion at 110, Sycamore's Ema Durst and Glenbrook North's Ariella Dobin both return as reigning champs, and Chicago Hope Academy's Demetria Griffin won it all as a 23-0 freshman. The team race produced the most interesting result of the winter: Hampshire won the girls title without a single individual champion — pure depth — anchored by 190-pound runner-up Samantha Diehl, a top-10 girl nationally.

The boys headliner is Woodstock Marian Central's Jimmy Mastny, a three-time state champion with a 53-1 season and a 134-3 career who enters his senior year ranked in the national top five at upper weight and committed to Iowa State — Illinois' own four-title chase to set beside the ones we wrote about in Iowa. The scariest underclassman in the state might be Providence Catholic's Justus Heeg, a two-time champion at 50-1 who is ranked in the national top five for the class of 2028 and won a Super 32 title this fall. Warren Township's Caleb Noble (46-1, Arizona State) and Marist's Ethan Sonne (Purdue) both return as 3A champions, Oak Park-River Forest's Jamiel Castleberry defends at 126, and a pair of sophomores — IC Catholic's Aiden Arnett and Loyola Academy's Niko Odiotti — won titles as freshmen and have three more winters to build on them.

Two rooms deserve their own paragraph. Hononegah returns three wrestlers who have all committed to Wisconsin — two-time champion Rocco Cassioppi around 150, his brother Bruno Cassioppi (a state runner-up) at 165, and champion Brody Sendele at 175 — a Badger pipeline occupying three consecutive weights in one 3A lineup. And in 1A, Vandalia returns both of its two-time state champions, Preston Waughtel (29-0 last season at 126) and Max Philpot at 132, the core of a room that pushed Coal City to the final dual of the season.

About that team picture: last winter produced something Illinois had not seen — in all three classes, the same school won both the traditional team title and the dual-team title. Marmion Academy swept 3A, IC Catholic Prep swept 2A, and Coal City swept 1A while going a perfect 40-0, its second straight dual crown. The 2026-27 twist is that the IHSA's success factor now stacks the champions on top of each other: IC Catholic moves up to compete in 3A this season, joining Marmion — who already plays above its enrollment class — so two of last year's three sweep champions land in the same bracket. Our schedule-based power ratings, for what they are worth this early, make Coal City the top-rated boys room in the entire state regardless of class, with Chicago Kenwood leading 3A and Lena-Winslow close behind in 1A. On the girls side the ratings like Camp Point Central, the Lincoln-Way co-op, and Oswego — though Hampshire just proved the title math can be won on depth alone.

The honest caveat, tuned for Illinois: this is one of the heaviest club states in the country, and a wrestler who competes under both a club and a school registration can still appear under more than one profile — several of the names above carry some of their results on a second entry. Our offseason cleanup also pulled a number of colleges and out-of-state teams that had been mis-tagged as Illinois off the boards. The accomplishments cited here are the verified ones; where a record on the site looks light, the bookkeeping is catching up, and the report tools on every profile come straight to us. As always, weights listed are where each wrestler last competed — expect moves before February.

Search any Illinois wrestler, team, or event above to see where they stand heading into the winter, or pull up the state rankings and sort by weight class. One state a day through the fall — the series rolls on.