ON TO STATE
Losiewicz pins Osceola senior to clinch berth
On a day where Medford’s five remaining wrestlers learned some things they’ll hopefully carry into next season, one fought through an early loss at Saturday’s WIAA Division 2 Amery sectional to extend his season for at least one more match.
Freshman Gage Losiewicz rebounded from his 13-3 semifinal loss to Baldwin-Woodville’s Tyler Fink by earning two big consolation wins and earn thirdplace in the 132-pound bracket. That’s what he needed to do to earn a spot in the WIAA state championship tournament, which starts tonight, Thursday, at about 7:15 p.m. at the Kohl Center in Madison.
“It feels good,” Losiewicz said Monday. “My start of the year goal was try to make the podium at state.”
As luck would have it, as a result of the new seeding process used for the first time this year, Losiewicz’s opening matchup tonight is a rematch against Fink. Fink (38-7) is seeded eighth out of the 12 wrestlers in the Division 2 132-pound bracket, while Losiewicz (33-9) is seeded ninth. Tonight’s losers in Division 2 competition will be eliminated. Winners, however, are guaranteed of at least two matches on Friday and, obviously, more if they keep winning.
Tonight’s winner will face the number-one seed, 47-2 Rhett Koenig of Prairie du Chien in a quarterfinal match at about noon.
Medford’s Thaddeus Sigmund, Jude Stark, Logan Kawa and Wyatt Johnson all came up empty at Saturday’s sectional in their first matches and saw their seasons end. Only Johnson, wrestling at 182 pounds, got a consolation wrestleback, which he nearly won but he wasn’t quite able to hold on against Ellsworth’s Louis Jahnke.
Medford head coach Brandon Marcis obviously is thrilled for Losiewicz, who was one of the team’s most consistent wrestlers throughout the season, filling the 138-pound weight class before dropping to 132 for the post-season.
“I especially look at his last match (Saturday) and I always judge how well he’s going to do by the look on his face,” Marcis said. “I can get a good read on what’s going on in his mind and he clearly wanted to win that match. I got the feeling that he felt he deserved to go to the state tournament and he pinned that kid from Osceola who I think was ranked ahead of him and pretty strong. When Gage wants something, he’s going to get it.”
Losiewicz opened sectional competition by taking down Rice Lake sophomore Ben Drost almost immediately and eventually settling in for the pin at 1:02.
“I just went out there to go after it, try to take first,” Losiewicz said. “It didn’t happen. I went out there (in the first match) and I think I hit an outside single to a half for the pin.”
That set up his semifinal match with Fink, a junior who took an easy 19-2 technical fall in 3:49 over West Salem-Bangor’s Nick Ziegler (15-20) in his first match. Losiewicz got the first takedown, but Fink reversed him and got back points for a 5-2 lead.
Fink extended that lead with another five-point combination in the second period.
“If I wouldn’t have gotten tilted it would’ve been only 5-3,” Losiewicz said. “It would’ve been a lot closer match. I need to move more on the bottom.”
“The score shows a 10-point margin, but the real score was like one move,” Marcis said. “It really was.”
Losiewicz said it wasn’t hard for him to re-focus after that loss.
“Those two matches I went out there just to try to wrestle back to second or third. Just try to get to state,” he said. “Do everything, try anything just to get there.”
Losiewicz had no trouble in the consolation semifinals, taking a 16-0 technical fall over Ziegler in 3:30 thanks to two near falls in each of the two periods. That set up a third-place match with Osceola senior Lucas Sedivy (39-10), who Losiewicz pinned in 2:56 to punch his state ticket. Sedivy got the first takedown, but Losiewicz came back to lead 3-2 after one period. Losiewicz started the second period on the top and buried Sedivy from the opening whistle.
Fink lost the championship match 6-1 to 44-1 Tanner Andersen of Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau/Melrose-Mindoro, meaning there was no second-place match.
“I was pretty happy,” Losiewicz said. “Then at the end of the day I was just trying to get ready to come back to practice and get ready for state.”
Marcis said he’s fine with seeing Fink again right off the bat in Madison.
“The thing about Gage is when he loses, he tends to lose by a lot,” Marcis said. “But it’s really not that bad, which I would say is the scoop with that match. Even though he lost by 10 in that match, it’s really not a 10-point spread. So the fact that we have him going into the tournament with the seeding, I actually kind of like it. We’re still going to focus on what we do, but there’s maybe one or two things like instead of circling left we circle right, stuff like that. I think it’s going to pay off. I like our draw.
“My philosophy has always been you have to beat everybody anyway,” he added. “We’re not going to complain before we didn’t have seeding and we’re not going to complain now that we do have seeding.”
“It’s a good thing and bad thing,” Losiewicz said. “If I keep moving and do all of my moves and beat him, it’ll be a good thing. He’s going to be one of the tougher guys I’ll have to wrestle right away. The bad thing is if of course I don’t win, then it’s done. I just have to keep moving and work on not getting tilted.”
The state appearance does have some special family meaning. Losiewicz happens to be a cousin of Gilman sophomore Troy Duellman, the county’s other state qualifier this year in Division 3. His father, Chad Losiewicz, has been an assistant on Medford’s staff this year, wrestled for Medford in the 1990s and has been with Gage ever since he first stepped on the mat as a first grader.
“It’s been pretty cool having my dad as a coach throughout from being a little kid to now,” Gage said. “We’re able to work on a lot of stuff at home.”
The rest of the results
For Sigmund, a Raider junior, it appeared going into the sectional that his first match with Northwestern junior Tommy Brown (43-9) was going to be crucial. That wound up being the case as Brown edged Sigmund 3-2 but lost his semifinal to number-one ranked Colton Hush of Baldwin-Woodville in a 60-second pin, meaning Sigmund’s season was over at 33-7.
Sigmund got his points through an escape and a stalling call. Marcis said the Raiders allowed Brown to escape in the third period, hoping to get a winning takedown.
“Thaddeus was one point away, he was very close,” Marcis said. “But we have to do the little things right. Maybe we just had our head down a little too much. We didn’t finish our shot. When you get to those close matches every little thing matters.”
Hush beat Rice Lake’s Carter Schulz 1-0 in the final. Brown wound up losing the third-place match to Amery’s Lane Anderson (37-14) by a score of 5-2.
At 126 pounds, Stark, a sophomore, lost a 6-2 decision to Baldwin-Woodville senior Hunter Bonte (31-11). Bonte then lost by injury default in the semifinals to eventual champion Austin Defoe of Ashland (40-2), ending Stark’s hope at a wrestleback. Stark finished 24-9.
“Jude wrestled well,” Marcis said. “He just couldn’t quite hit his duck under so he couldn’t quite create that offense and get the guy moving. We just lost another close one.”
At 160 pounds, Kawa (26-14), another sophomore, was beaten 10-6 by Ellsworth senior Ivan Veenendall (32-12), who wrestled back and placed second and getting pinned in 3:33 in the semifinals by Amery’s Eddie Simes (42-8), who won the championship 7-2 over Bloomer-Colfax’s Bowen Rothbauer (41-4). Veenendall beat Rothbauer 5-3 in the second-place match.
“Logan was probably technically better than that guy, but every time that guy took him down, he took him down to his back,” Marcis said. “The guy had two good moves for 10 points. Other than that, we beat him pretty good, but he got those two feet to backs for 10 points.”
Johnson got a tough opening match against second-ranked Ian Smith of Northwestern (49-2), who pinned Johnson in 1:48. But Smith’s 7-6 semifinal win over Jahnke gave Johnson a chance to wrestle back against Jahnke, who took a quick 5-0 lead. Johnson, unfortunately always got his momentum at the end of each period. He was nearing a reversal when the first period ended. He got an escape and takedown in the last 30 seconds of the second to pull within 5-3 and he reversed Jahnke as time expired to pull within 7-5.
“Even thought Wyatt lost that last match, he wrestled very well,” Marcis said. “It was a loss, but we always look at how we wrestled, how good were we technically and even though he lost, I’d say he finished well. I hope that sting of defeat sticks with him and with the rest of the guys. In the summer time when it’s time to come in and wrestle rather than go to the beach, I hope we’re wrestling rather than going to the beach.”
WIAA Div. 2 132-pound state bracket
#8 Tyler Fink, Jr., 38-7, Baldwin-Woodville vs. #9 Gage Losiewicz, Fr., 33-9, Medford; winner faces #1 Rhett Koenig, Jr., 47-2, Prairie du Chien #5 Brody Hart, So., 39-2, Winneconne vs. #12 Sam Koth, Jr., 36-15, Campbellsport; winner faces #4 Tanner Andersen, Sr., 44-1, G-ET/ M-M #6 Bryce Crowley, Jr., 37-6, Omro vs. #11 Isaiah Walker, Sr., 24-4, Marinette; winner faces #3 Caleb Delebreau, So., 40-10, Luxemburg- Casco #7 Owen Seffrood, Fr., 31-3, Darlington-Black Hawk vs. #10 Austin Schmallenberg, Jr., 30-17, New London; winner faces #2 Chandler Curtis, Sr., 44-6, Lodi
Medford’s Gage Losiewicz earns a 16-0 technical fall over West Salem-Bangor’s Nick Ziegler to get one win closer to the state berth he eventually earned at Saturday’s WIAA Division 2 Amery wrestling sectional. Losiewicz finished 3rd at 132 pounds to advance to state.ROSS PATTERMANN/TRIBUNE PHONOGRAPH
