Duellman finishes 9th to lead Wolfpack wrestling in River Falls

NORTHERN BADGER WRESTLING CLASSIC

Troy Duellman won five of seven matches and worked his way back to ninth place, leading a trio of Cornell-Gilman- Lake Holcombe wrestlers who competed at the two-day Northern Badger Invitational held in River Falls Dec. 29-30.

Braeden Person went 2-2 at 152 pounds and Preston Fredrickson was 1-2 at 126 pounds and did not make it past day one of the 41-team tournament.

“The Northern Badger is a great test in the middle of the season,” Wolfpack head coach Greg Sonnentag said. “We hope to use this experience to help motivate us and pinpoint some areas to improve on for the second half of the season.”

Duellman opened the tournament with a quick 38-second pin of Spring Valley- Elmwood’s Frank Weix, but he lost a close 2-0 decision in the round of 16 to senior Owen Larson of River Falls. That knocked him to the consolation bracket.

Duellman finished day one in the 145-pound weight class with two wins in the bracket, downing Mark Jarman of Northwestern 9-0 and Landon Wilson of Somerset 9-0. That assured him of a top-12 finish.

On day two, Duellman, now 14-5, was defeated in his first match by Baldwin- Woodville’s Hunter Gartmann 7-1. But he rebounded with two big wins, outlasting the Luck Co-op’s Brandon Lucas in a 10-2 major decision that wasn’t decided until an overtime tiebreaker. Duellman finished his run with a 10-0 major decision over Ethan Melton of Spooner-Webster. Lucas is 14-9 and Melton is 12-6.

Person (8-5) started the tournament with a pin in 1:54 over Marathon’s Nick Van Rixel but a pin in 42 seconds by 18-3 Miles Longsdorf of River Falls sent Person to the consolation bracket.

He stayed alive with a 2-0 win over Elkhorn’s Vince Mancini, but then he was eliminated by Lucas D’Jock of the Luck Co-op, who pinned him in 2:12.

Fredrickson (6-6) opened with a 17-1 technical fall over Brayden Mohr of Chetek-Weyerhaeuser/Prairie Farm that ended in 2:51, but a 43-second pin by Chequamegon’s Sebastian Barnabus and a 52-second pin by Edgar’s Austin Schreiber eliminated the Wolfpack freshman.

Cornell-Gilman-Lake Holcombe finished with 26.5 points to place ninth out of 13 teams placed in Division 3 for the tournament. The Wolfpack was 36th overall.

Amery was the runaway champion in Division 1 and overall with 340 points, beating Baldwin-Woodville (312.5), River Falls (273) and St. Croix Central (271) in Division 1. The Neillsville Co-op won the Division 2 title and was third overall with 277 points, just ahead of Cadott (260.5) and St. Croix Falls (246.5). Glenwood City won Division 3 with 157 points, while Clear Lake (101) was second.

The Wolfpack is in Cameron tonight, Thursday, for a triangular that also includes Chetek-Weyerhaeuser/Prairie Farm. The team will be at the Cadott Invitational Saturday before attending the Turtle Lake-Clayton Quad on Jan. 13 that will include Unity and Bruce.

Two wrestle in Stanley

On Dec. 21, the Wolfpack had just Duellman and Fredrickson available in the Stanley-Boyd Quad, which included Eau Claire Memorial and Marathon.

Duellman got a 6-2 win over Stanley-Boyd, lost 4-1 to Eau Claire Memorial and lost by pin to Marathon.

Fredrickson won by forfeit against Memorial, was pinned against Marathon and went 1-1 in JV matches against Stanley- Boyd wrestlers.