Co-op battles it out at Northern Badger Classic
By Nathaniel Underwood
The Abbotsford-Colby wrestling team competed against over 40 different teams at the Northern Badger Wrestling Classic held in River Falls last week. The boys team took 16th place with 113.0 points while the girls finished 15th with 15.0 points at the conclusion of the two day event.
The boys team had four wrestlers finish in the top ten of their brackets. Tanner Halopka had the team’s highest finish, taking second in the 165-pound bracket. The senior improved to 19-2 on the season, picking up four victories to put himself in the championship match.
Halopka’s tournament started with three straight first round pins, taking down Gavin Moats (Spring Valley/Elmwood) in 28 seconds, Reed Mccain (Marathon) in 1:00 and Jack Owens (Cumberland) at the 1:16 mark.
In the semi-final match, Halopka was paired with Conner Melton (Spooner/ Webster). He nearly earned his fourth straight pin in the first round, but Melton managed to survive through the round. After a wash in the second round, the Abby- Colby senior held a 5-0 lead heading into the final period. After electing for a neutral start, Halopka earned two more points after taking down Melton one final time. This performance earned him the 7-0 decision and a spot in the final.
After not surrendering a single point to his opponents in the first four rounds, Halopka had to face off against the undefeated Owen Wasley of St. Croix Central. He could not find the same level of success against a tough opponent and Wasley was able to come out with the 11-0 major decision victory. Halopka earned 38.0 team points for his second place effort Luis Nava Rojas took sixth place for the co-op in the 285-pound category. He battled through eight matches to earn his spot after an early loss knocked him out of the championship bracket and he finished 5-3 on the day.
Nava Rojas earned his first victory of the day after pinning Cadott’s Tucker Salzgeber in the first period. He found himself on the wrong end of a fall in his next match against Jack Lazar (Ladysmith), however. After an initial takedown by Nava Rojas, Lazar managed to escape and managed to pin him just before the end of the period, regulating the co-op wrestler to the consolation bracket. He bounced back by rattling off three straight victories, winning 4-1, 4-0 and 6-5 decisions over Jeremiah Johnson (Ellsworth), Jackson Meyer (Neillsville/ Greenwood/Loyal) and Logan Bockman (St. Croix Falls) respectively.
The wins set up a rematch with Lazar, but this time Nava Rojas was the one who came out on top. He took an early 2-0 lead with a takedown in the first round and added two more in the second period with another takedown. He then finished the job in the final period, registering a victory by fall after pinning Lazar. In the consolation semi-finals, he faced off against Menomonie’s Andrew Schaefer and after three rounds, the pair were knotted at 3 points each. Schaefer was able to sneak out with the tiebreaker victory, with a reversal in overtime being the deciding factor. In the fifth place match, Nava Rojas fell to Jack Cahfer at the 3:33 mark. His results earned the coop 24.0 team points.
Tristen Smazal went 4-2 in the
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120-pound bracket to finish seventh overall and put up 19.0 team points. He won his first two matches by pinning Jonah Trudell (Shell Lake) and then earning a 12-5 decision over Deaven McClanahan (Clear Lake). He then met Marathon’s Cale Quaintance in the quarterfinals and lost an 11-6 decision to the Red Raiders wrestler.
Smazal then had a comeback 4-3 decision victory over Glenwood City’s Landon Obermueller in his first round in the consolation bracket. After falling behind 3-0 partway through the second period, Smazal earned a takedown in the second and another in the third to defeat Obermueller. He then matched up with Kaleb Lodahl of Cadott but was unable to get past the opposing Hornet, losing a 12-7 decision. The loss placed him in the seventh place match against River Falls’ Oliver Larson. After two rounds locked in a 0-0 tie, Smazal chose to start on the bottom for the final period. He notched the match’s first points after working a reversal and then added three more with a nearfall. The score remained there for the rest of the match and he earned a 5-0 victory and seventh place.
Matt Jakel had the final top ten finish for Abby-Colby, taking 10th in the 126-pound weight class. He went 4-3 over the course of the tournament and earned 17.0 team points.
After pinning Middleton’s Grady Hargrove at the 1:15 mark, Jakel then was pinned by Grayson Ratajczak (Freedom) and forced into the consolation bracket. He notched two victories by fall, pinning Victor Pattermann (Boyceville) at the 0:47 mark and Monte Lodahl (Cadott) at the 1:54 mark. Jakel then matched up with eventual third place finisher Talon Berg of Osceola and was defeated by fall.
The loss pitted him up against Ratajczak for a second time and this time Jakel came out the victor. A strong finish from Jakel in the third round in which he scored eight points allowed him to take the 13-6 decision and move on to the ninth place match, where he faced off against Drake Gartmann (Baldwin-Woodville). He could not get much going against Gartmann and eventually lost 4-1.
Also earning points for the team were Jacob Hoppe, who went 2-2 on the day and scored 7.0 points, Alix Colby, who went 1-2 and earned 4.0 team points and Erik Martinez, who went 1-2 and earned 3.0 points.
On the girls side, Amelia Meier earned 3.0 team points but couldn’t find a win, falling to Shelby Garica (Bruce), Savana Millermon (Glenwood City) and Briley Burnmeister (Ladysmith) in the 100-pound weight class. Makenna Herrmann earned two byes in the 120-pound weight class and then fell to Cadott’s Tessa York in the final. The pair were tied in the second period, but York’s reversal turned into a pin as she earned the victory over Hermann.
Up next for the Abby-Colby squad is a trip to Spencer on Thursday, Jan. 4 for a triangular with the Rockets and Cadott. The first match is to begin at 4:30 p.m.
