MEDFORD WRESTLING - Wrestlers in top 5 at North; dominate Warriors in first dual

MEDFORD WRESTLING

Logan Kawa reached the championship match at 175 pounds, Max Dietzman and Gage Losiewicz were semifinalists and several more Medford Raiders battled for high placements during the team’s fifth-place finish at Saturday’s 28team Eau Claire North Invitational.

Raider Avery Losiewicz had a big day on the girls’ side, earning that tournament’s Most Valuable Wrestler award after pinning her way to the 132-pound championship.

Medford compiled 323 points in the team standings to trail Simley, Minn. (547.5), Kaukauna (507), Wisconsin Rapids (442) and Hartland Arrowhead (366). Menomonie was sixth with 321 points, followed by Holmen (277.5), New Richmond (247.5), Auburndale (201) and Eau Claire North (198). Baldwin-Woodville (177.5) was 11th, two points ahead of Abbotsford- Colby. “In my mind before the tournament I kind of expected to be top 10,” Medford head coach Brandon Marcis said. “I knew if we were top five it’d be a pretty good day because there were a lot of D-1 powerhouses there and we were right there in the mix of it. Realistically we were within striking distance of Arrowhead.

“We’re starting to hit our stride as far as getting our lineup straightened out, but that’s always like putting puzzle pieces together and finding that weight the kids want to be at, finding the weight that’s best for the team.”

Avery Losiewicz was voted the top female wrestler for her work in about a period’s worth of wrestling. She was seeded second in a bracket of 10 wrestlers and pinned Holmen’s Birgitta Finn in 49 seconds in the quarterfinals, Hudson’s Kylie Simpson in 46 seconds in the semifinals and then took down top-seeded Peyton Kratochville of Holmen in just 24 seconds in the championship bout. Her 50 points put Medford in a 15th-place tie in the girls team standings. Holmen was the girls champion with 604 points. “She turned a lot of heads,” Marcis said. “She’s been so dominant in the matches she’s been in so far. Her challenge is going to be to keep that same momentum rolling and to go seek out the best competition she can and go after them, whether it’s wrestling in the boys division, or bumping up or down weight classes. She needs to have the attitude that I’m going to go find the toughest match I can and I’m going to kick their butt. I’m going to go get it. She works hard, she’s a sponge, she has a great attitude and I really think Avery can go as far as she wants in the sport of wrestling.”

The 175-pound bracket had Vristol Short of Simley, Minn. and Kawa as the top two seeds and that’s how it ended with Short edging Kawa 2-1 in the final. Kawa controlled each of his matches before that, pinning Kody Steivang of Chippewa Falls in 56 seconds, Baldwin-Woodville’s Drew Stark in 1:12 and Eau Claire North’s Evon Sova in 1:41 to reach the semifinals. There, he handled third-seeded Brady Sprangers of Kaukauna 7-0.

“Logan wrestled a kid who kinda wrestles a similar style to him,” Marcis said. “In the first period they got into an upper body situation where it was kind of 50/50 and the kid just kind of won that scramble. That was a turning point in the match because it was right at the end of the first period. The key for Logan to have as much success as he can will be to dictate the ties and to dictate the pace of the match and not falling into what they want to do. He’s right there with the best in the state. He’s a high-quality wrestler. It’s just when we get to those high-quality matches we want to be the one controlling the pace, controlling the ties.”

Dietzman drew the eighth seed at 285 pounds but did much better than that. After a pin in 1:18 over Joseph Bertling of the Nekoosa Co-op, Dietzman got a big one in the quarterfinals, defeating top-seeded Xavier Fallon of Hartland Arrowhead 5-2. Fallon came into the tournament 7-0.

Fifth-seeded Tanner Gormanson of Wisconsin Rapids pinned Dietzman in 5:22 in the semifinals and went on to lose the championship match 5-4 to Kaukauna’s third-seeded Nehemiah Lendobeja. Dietzman outlasted Menomonie senior Andrew Schaefer in the third-place match, which went into overtime. Dietzman got the escape he needed in the ultimate tiebreaker to win the match.

“Max just wrestles with so much heart every time out,” Marcis said. “He’s only been wrestling for a couple years. His mat IQ is getting better. The more competitive matches we can get him in, the higher his strategy will be and he’ll start beating those ranked kids. He’s getting pins. The great thing about Max is he knows what he knows and he does that well. His brain is not clouded with too much. He has good technique on the things that he knows and he goes out and gets it.”

Losiewicz was the top seed at 157 pounds got to the semifinals with a pin in 1:30 over Dyllon Zwiefelhofer of Bloomer- Colfax and a 4-1 quarterfinal win over Baldwin-Woodville’s Taden Holldorf. That set up one of the best matchups of the tournament in the semifinals with the 8-1 Losiewicz facing 9-0 Ramon Gulmatico of Arrowhead. Gulmatico won it 5-2 and then beat Kaukauna’s Peyton Lee, who was 11-0 going into it, 3-1 in the final. Losiewciz, now 9-2, pinned Simley’s Derrick Dohmen 4:37 in the third-place match.

“It’s not like he got beat by a nobody, Marcis said. “In the third-place match when he didn’t feel that pressure he wrestled amazing. He pinned that kid who was also no slouch. Gage just has to go out there and let it all fly and not worry about the results. Gage is at his best when he’s not worried. He did great. He never stopped wrestling.”

Jude Stark took fifth at 132 pounds with a 3-1 day. His pin in 1:51 over Rice Lake’s Bailey MacDonald put him in the quarterfinals where he lost 14-6 in a frenetic match with third-seeded Carter Freeman on Wisconsin Rapids, who wound up taking second. Stark closed out his day with a 52-second pin over Nekoosa’s Jacob Bertling and a 5-0 win over Baldwin-Woodville’s Drake Gartmann in the fifth-place bout.

“He lost to Carter Freeman from Rapids who’s a great wrestler in Division 1,” Marcis said. “He was in the scrambles with him but this kid is just as athletic at scrambling as Jude. It always amounted to who stopped wrestling first or who had that last little stride in the flurry. It was a really exciting match to watch. The score was 14-6, so it looks like Freeman dominated but he really didn’t. If a couple of those takedowns go the other way for us and Jude wrestles through those a little more then he scores and that match is a lot tighter. I really think Jude overall had a great day.”

Cory Lindahl was sixth at 150 pounds, getting a pin in 3:02 over New Richmond’s Noah Zanon before getting pinned in the quarterfinals in 3:13 by another solid wrestler from Wisconsin Rapids, Mason Tritz. A pin in 1:52 over Blair-Taylor’s Ryan Flynn put Lindahl in the fifthplace match, where he was defeated 7-3 by Prescott’s Nolan Thomley, who was a fourth-place finisher in last year’s Division 2 sectional.

Braxton Weissmiller drew the second seed at 215 pounds and wound up seventh with a 3-2 day. He was forced to wrestle a preliminary match and won that by pin, then he outlasted Eau Claire North’s Danny Bulman 9-8 to reach the quarterfinals, where he was pinned in 4:54 by eventual third-place finisher Ben Helminski from Menomonie. Weissmiller lost his first consolation match 5-0 to Arrowhead’s Connor Murrenus, then won the seventh-place match by pin in 2:12 over Spring Valley-Elmwood’s Tyler Vanasse.

The Raiders got Paxton Rothmeier and Owen Higgins into the lineup and both took ninth rebounding from early losses.

At 165 pounds, Rothmeier lost 8-0 to Simley’s Judah Heeg and finished with a 46-second pin over Whitehall’s Devin Hutsell, a pin in 2:31 over Adam Foss of Chetek-Weyerhaeuser/Prairie Farm and a 4-1 win over Jakob Luchterhand of the Neillsville Co-op, his second close win over Luchterhand in three days.

At 144 pounds, Higgins opened his season with an 8-6 loss to 13-1 Trig White of Chetek-Weyerhaeuser/Prairie Farm, who wound up fifth. Higgins then pinned Renner Stoll of Menomonie in 31 seconds, Logan Greuel of Arrowhead in 59 seconds and Steven Atherton of Prescott in 1:30.

“Owen Higgins had a pretty good day,” Marcis said. “He lost the first match but after that he pinned his way through the tournament. I do attribute that Owen being in his first match back. The kid was strong, a decent kid. It was just a bad matchup to start. Paxton’s coming back in and every match he’s getting better, his wind is getting better, he’s hitting his high crotches more. I think finding that takedown for him has been beneficial.”

Parker Lissner was 10th with a 3-3 day at 138 pounds. He pinned Eau Claire Memorial’s Adrik Dix in 1:12 in his preliminary. After a 6-0 loss to Aiden Armagost of Rapids, Lissner got a 1-0 win over Chase Fredrick of Chippewa Falls and a 7-2 win over Kaukauna’s Ryan Schmidt before dropping a 7-1 decision to Sam Schmitt of Spring Valley-Elmwood in the ninth-place bout. Jordan Lavin was 10th at 120 pounds with a 10-4 win over Brody Heinbuch of Eau Claire North and a pin in 2:37 over Gavin Andrew of Spencer-Columbus Catholic-Granton before a loss by pin to Zeke Anderson of Bloomer-Colfax in the ninth-place match.

Jonathan Bartnik filled in for a sick Evan Wilkins at 190 pounds and went 1-3 to place 12th. He pinned Sean Harp of Chippewa Falls in 2:07 in his second match and lost by pin in 2:43 to Superior’s Beckett Selden in the 12th-place match. Ayden Tyznik was 2-2 and took 13th at 113 pounds, pinning Evan Thao of Eau Claire Memorial in 2:26 and beating Justin Sendejo of Chippewa Falls 7-5 in overtime in his last two matches. Caden Olson went 1-2 and took 13th at 106 pounds, pinning Frank Juresch IV of Whitehall in 1:48.

Raiders 63, Warriors 6

Medford’s first dual meet of the season was a success with the Raiders overpowering the host Neillsville Co-op 63-6 Thursday evening.

Medford secured nine pins or forfeits in the meet but had to battle to get three decisions as well.

The toughest of those was a 4-3 win at 165 pounds for Rothmeier in his first match of the season. Battling with an equally-strong Jakob Luchterhand, Rothmeier got the key first takedown in the opening period, which kept Luchterhand chasing the rest of the way. A stalling point in the second period made it 3-0. Luchterhand got a reversal with 45 seconds left in the match, but he cut Rothmeier loose late in hopes of getting a takedown that never came.

In the next match, Kawa was never really in danger of being scored upon, but it took him until the third period to get Dane Luchterhand on his back in a 6-0 win. Leading 1-0 after a second-period escape, Kawa rode Luchterhand throughout the third, getting two near falls to put it away.

At 138 pounds, Lissner used a first-period takedown and second-period reversal to build a 4-0 lead over Adam Kautzer. Three third-period takedowns finished off a 10-5 win.

The most exciting pin of the dual came at 106 pounds. Olson got caught immediately and quickly found himself down 5-0 to the Warriors’ Chase Lindner. A reversal by the end of the first period got Olson back in the match. The wrestlers started neutral in the second period. Olson fought off a shot by Lindner and got a takedown out of it to pull within 5-4. It was 6-4 in the third when Olson got his shot and took it, getting the pin at 5:06. “I always talk about the team concept and I just think the better the team, the better the individual because you feed off of each other, and it’s just great environment when you have a team of wrestlers who are working together toward the same goals,” Marcis said. “When Olson came back and fought off that headlock and then came back, grabbed that guy’s head when he was on top and flipped him to his back and got the pin, the whole bench went nuts. That’s the sort of thing you want to see with a team because it shows that they’re invested in each other and they truly care about how the team does and their teammates.”

Lavin got his first varsity win at 120 pounds, pinning Josh Reis in 2:53. Dietzman got a hold of Jackson Meyer’s leg, drove him to the mat and pinned him at 3:25 in the 285-pound match. Wilkins controlled his 190-pound match with Damian Sampson, getting the pin in 3:32. Stark bumped up to 144 pounds and pinned Michael Harris in just 1:41. That was followed by Lindahl’s 49-second pin of Evan Kautzer at 150 pounds.

Forfeits went to Avery Losiewicz at 132 pounds, Gage Losiewicz at 157 pounds and Weissmiller at 215 pounds. There was a double forfeit at 126. Neillsville’s only win came at 113 pounds where Rydge Tibbett pinned Tyznik in 50 seconds.

Home tonight

Medford hosts three Great Northern Conference squads tonight, Thursday, at 6:30 p.m. for the home opener at Raider Hall.

In round one of the GNC quad, Medford will face the Tomahawk Hatchets on one mat, while Rhinelander battles Mosinee on the other. In round two, Medford faces Rhinelander and Tomahawk meets Mosinee.

Medford then heads east on Saturday for the 30-team Shawano Holiday Classic, which starts at 9 a.m. and will feature boys and girls brackets.

Max Dietzman

Caden Olson