Experience, depth carry Raiders to the title

MEDFORD WRESTLERS MAKE IT BACK-T0-BACK TITLES

It was expected that Tomahawk wouldn’t make it easy for the Medford Raiders at Saturday’s Great Northern Conference wrestling tournament held at Raider Hall.

But Medford’s depth and experience were simply too much for the Hatchets and the rest of the field to beat.

The Raiders clinched their third GNC championship in four years, a feat this year’s seniors played a huge role in accomplishing, by securing six individual titles, two second-place finishes and two thirds to pile up 418 points. The Hatchets finished with 391 points.

The rest of the field wasn’t close with Rhinelander edging Antigo 257- 254 for third and Lakeland outscoring Mosinee 243-195 for fifth. Combined with dual-meet results, Rhinelander and Antigo wound up tying for third place in the final team standings.

The six individual champs ties Medford’s GNC record, set in 2017 at Antigo. Medford also had six champions in the 1998 Lumberjack Conference meet in Park Falls.

Seniors Jake Rau and Zeke Sigmund won their third GNC titles, seniors Dane Higgins and Clay Bowe won their second conference championships and juniors Emett Grunwald and Carson Church won their first titles.

While the Raiders’ main goal all season has been to get Medford to the team state tournament in the next week, they said the conference title is still im- portant.

“It’s a pretty big deal,” Sigmund said after Saturday’s meet. “We came together as a team today and we really pushed it when we needed to push it. I feel good about next weekend and how we’re going to do the rest of the season.”

“I think everybody really wrestled hard, especially when it counted,” Rau said. “We needed the points in the final round. In the beginning of the round we kinda started out rocky with the lighter weights. Everybody pulled together and really started pinning out and that’s what we needed. I feel like that’s something that we’re going to have to do for the rest of the season at regionals, team sectionals and team state.” Tomahawk held an early lead in the team scores and there may have been a little nervousness among Raiders fans when their team lost three straight close matches in the day’s final round.

But Higgins started the championship run with his win in the 138-pound final and things settled down from there.

“It was a fun day,” said head Brandon Marcis, who was voted the GNC’s Coach of the Year for the third time following Saturday’s meet. “It’s always stressful. You ride the highs and lows through the day. We started out down a little bit, but I don’t think anyone ever really thought that the ship was sinking. Even though we were down in the beginning, we knew we had it under control. We talked about getting bonus points and how important those were. We talked about wrestling aggressive and making guys wrestle. If they’re not going to open up or ball up on bottom we’re going to cut them and we’re going to force action on the feet.”

The final round started with Medford leading Tomahawk 278-246. The round started at 106 pounds with Ty Sova getting a takedown against Lakeland’s Sawyer Duir to take a 4-3 lead with 48 seconds. Battling illness, Sova was unable to hang on, as Duir reversed him with 15 seconds left and added two back points for a 7-4 win.

In a three-man bracket, Duir went 2-0 to win it. Sova took second, beating Tomahawk’s Addison Peissig in a 15-3 major decision in his only other match.

At 126 pounds, Medford’s Eric Rehbein and Mosinee’s Chase Kmosena locked horns in their second classic, lowscoring battle in less than two week’s time. Kmosena won the Jan. 28 matchup 1-0. On Saturday, Rehbein had to work as hard as he could to get an escape with five seconds left in the second period. Kmosena got his tying escape with 1:25 left in the third. The match stayed 1-1 through the one-minute overtime. Kmosena was able to ride out Rehbein for 30 seconds in the ultimate tiebreaker and then he escaped Rehbein during his turn on the bottom to earn a 2-1 win. Both wrestlers came into the match 4-0 for the day.

Rehbein’s second-place finish marks his first All-GNC award. He pinned Antigo’s Sam Hoffmann in 2:55, Lakeland’s Logan Strasburg in 45 seconds and Rhinelander’s Cole Lehman in 1:59. He used a third-period escape to third-place finisher Luke Knight of Tomahawk 3-2.

“I know they respect each other and they respect each other’s abilities,” Marcis said of Rehbein and Kmosena. “It’s always fun wrestling those matches. We hope maybe we’ll see him at the state tournament. That’s going to be our goal moving forward.”

At the same time on the other mat, Carson Church had a chance to wrap up a perfect day in the 132-pound bracket, but he was taken down early in the third period and lost 3-2 to Tomahawk’s Mason Evans. That result created a three-way for first between 3-1 wrestlers Church, Evans and Logan Edwards of Antigo, the defending 126-pound champion. Church pinned Edwards in 5:28 in his first match of the day and pins over Lakeland’s Zane Grams (5:50) and Rhinelander’s Brady Schrieber (:48) allowed him to win the tiebreaking criteria and take the title.

“I wrestled my hardest in all my matches,” Church said. “My last one didn’t go as I wanted it. (The Edwards match) was good. I kinda dominated him all match long and then in the final seconds I ended up sticking him where it counted. That was big. It was just big to keep pinning my guys throughout the day.”

Higgins was up next at 138 pounds. He and Tomahawk’s Alex Bishop entered their final match 3-0 for the day. Higgins wasted no time in getting the first takedown. He got another one to start the second period and reversed Bishop in the third to cruise to a 6-1 win.

“Everybody’s nervous in a championship match,” Higgins said. “You’ve gotta be confident in yourself. I stayed confident, hit my moves. After that, it was just another match. Go right back to cheering on the team after it and getting everybody else ready to go for their championship. Everybody pulled through.”

Earlier, Higgins earned a pin in 2:31 over Mosinee’s Cole Coppock, took a 14-2 major decision over Antigo’s Jaden Schoeneck and destroyed Lakeland’s Jose Retana in a 19-2 major decision.

At 145 pounds, Sigmund and Lakeland’s Jason Hilgart entered their lastround match with 4-0 records. Sigmund wasn’t into drama however, pinning Hilgart in just 45 seconds to win the weight class title. He never wrestled into the second period, pinning Rhinelander’s Jordan Sparling (:54), Antigo’s Robbie Hagerty (1:13), Mosinee’s Tristan Iczkowski (1:55) and Tomahawk’s Micah Arnott (1:28).

“I’ve wrestled (Hilgart) quite a few times before,” Sigmund said. “He’s always been a fairly good match. Right at the beginning of the match I kinda got in trouble a little bit, but I stayed calm and didn’t panic. I just wrestled my stuff and it worked out in the end.”

“Zeke coming out against Hilgart and pinning him, that was huge,” Marcis said.

Grunwald and Antigo’s Neil Bretl met for the 152-pound title with both carrying 4-0 records into their last-round match. Leading 3-2, Grunwald rode Bretl out through the second period and used that momentum to finish off a 6-2 win.

“I got through right away on the feet,” Grunwald said “Then he reversed me, so it was 2-2. Then I got an escape at the end of the first. After I held him down in the second period, I knew I was going to win because I could get out from the bottom. It just felt good to win and win a conference title.”

Grunwald easily won his first four matches, pinning Mosinee’s Noah Meshek in 16 seconds, Lakeland’s Jerry Goselin in 3:36, Rhinelander’s Cayden Neri in 54 seconds and beating Tomahawk’s Tom Rigney 20-7.

“Emett, I thought, wrestled really well on his feet today,” Marcis said. “Good motion. He didn’t stay in the ties too long. He’s got a good gas tank. He’s always in good shape, in good condition.”

Bowe became Medford’s fifth titleist when he pinned Tomahawk’s Kade Wenninger in 1:05. Wenninger took a good shot off the bat and got a takedown, but Bowe showed his physical side, quickly reversing Wenninger and pinning him to earn his second dominant win of the season in this matchup of state-ranked wrestlers.

That win, combined with a pin of Mosinee’s Ben Folwarski in 1:16, a pin of Lakeland’s Henry Evenhouse in 1:21 and a pin of Rhinelander’s Connor Lund in 4:28 led to Bowe being voted the GNC’s Wrestler of the Year following the meet.

“I usually never get in trouble,” Bowe said of his title match. “I like to get the crowd fired up. I don’t know. I’ve been told by plenty of people don’t count me out because I always come back around somehow one way or another.”

In another of the day’s most highlyanticipated title matches, Rau beat Antigo’s Nick Roller 5-2 in the 220-pound final. Rau got the first takedown a minute in and used an escape and reversal in the second period to win it 5-2. Roller’s reversal came late.

Rau and Roller have met countless times in 15 years of wrestling and the mutual respect showed after the match. They didn’t match up when the teams faced off in their dual meet Jan. 16.

“I started wrestling when I was 3 years old and that’s when he started,” Rau said. “We’ve always been the same weight. We’ve wrestled in countless tournaments. In youth, it always went back and forth every weekend. In high school, we keep on just staying at the same weight. He just got taller, that’s all the difference is.”

Rau’s other wins were pins over Lakeland’s Landon Saglin (1:00), Tomahawk’s Austin Leinen (1:59) and Rhinelander’s David Schramke (:25).

Senior Jake Brunner took third to earn honorable mention at 160 pounds. He started with a pin in 1:57 over Rhinelander’s Joe Fugle and then got a big 9-7 overtime win over Tomahawk’s Logan Bishop. But, Antigo’s Joshua Heuss then pinned him in 3:39. Brunner forced a three-way tie for first by beating Lakeland’s Nick Rybicki 11-4, but the tiebreaking criteria gave first place to Heuss and second place to Bishop.

This is Brunner’s third All-GNC award. He won the 106-pound title as a freshman and was second at 113 pounds as a sophomore.

“Jake Brunner leveled up when he beat that Tomahawk kid in the overtime,” Marcis said. “That’s exciting whenever you get those kinds of matches in here and the fans are going nuts in Raider Hall. It’s really loud in here, it gets your blood pumping. It really does.”

Hayden Johnson took third by going 2-2 in a tough 170-pound bracket. He started with pins of 35 seconds over Mosinee’s Jaydon Cherek and 1:27 over Antigo’s Gideon Sass. Tomahawk’s Marcus Matti got revenge for a Jan. 30 loss with a 7-3 win over Johnson and champion Walker Hartman of Rhinelander pinned him in 1:54.

Dalton Krug battled through pain in his knee and placed fourth at 195 pounds. He got two byes during the day and lost three matches, the closest being a 12-8 defeat to Mosinee’s Thomas Obremski, who avenged two recent losses to Krug. Blake Schilling was fifth at 120 pounds and Matthew Gebert was fifth at 113 pounds with each receiving points with fifth-round byes.

Post-season is here

WIAA tournament time has arrived and with it comes a chance for Medford’s underclassmen to take their next step to help the Raiders achieve their goals and a chance for the seniors to add to their already impressive legacy at the school.

The WIAA Division 2 regional meet will be hosted Saturday by the Regis-Altoona co-op at Regis High School in Eau Claire. Matches are slated to start at 10 a.m. The top two finishers in each weight class advance to sectional competition in Osceola Feb. 22. The top team will compete in the WIAA Division 2 Baldwin-Woodville team sectional Tuesday with the semifinals set for 6 p.m.

“I’m looking forward to wrestling hard and just giving it my all and see how far we go,” Grunwald said “I’m definitely going to miss these guys after they graduate. This is my second team conference title with these guys, so it’s pretty special.”

“I just need to give it my all the rest of the year,” Sigmund said. “I don’t have another shot at this next year. I just have to keep working my stuff and do what I do and hope it works out in the end for me.”

“I want to wrestle every match like it’s my last,” Bowe said. “Every time they put a kid in front of me, go through him. That’s all I can do.”

“It’s surreal,” Rau said. “You just have to take every match like it’s your last, like Clay said. Leave it all out on the mat. In that six minutes, you go as hard as you can. You can be tired the rest of your life because it doesn’t matter. You just take every match and plow through them.”

“With the season coming to an end and my wrestling career I just want to take it all in and enjoy the next three weeks,” Higgins said. “I really just want to enjoy every little bit of every practice, every match, just everything.”