Duellman gets 100th career win; Angell pins two at Clear Lake

Troy Duellman got his milestone 100th win while placing fourth at 157 pounds and Taydyn Angell was fourth at 215 pounds for the Cornell-Gilman-Lake Holcombe Wolfpack at Saturday’s St. Croix Falls Wrestling Classic.

Battling illness, Duellman won his first two matches to reach the 157-pound semifinals and then retired for the day. His milestone 100th win was an 11-7 decision over Noah Ballweber of Princeton, Minn. in the quarterfinals. Duellman started his day with a pin in 1:50 over Prescott’s Carter Larsen.

The illness unfortunately prevented what could have been a couple of interesting rematches for Duellman. In the semifinals, he would’ve faced Cumberland’s Harrison Ruppel (28-10), who is one of the few wrestlers to beat Duellman (28-3) this year. Ruppel lost an 11-9 overtime match in the championship to St. Croix Falls’ Griffin Marko, who beat Duellman two years ago in sectional and state competition.

Angell (27-7) reached Saturday’s quarterfinals in a tough 215-pound bracket by pinning Dawson Nordquist of Turtle Lake-Clayton for the second time in three days, this time in 2:22 and by pinning Kasey Johnson of St. Croix Falls (23-8) in 5:25.

He met 33-1 Cy Kruse of Totino Grace, Minn. in the semifinals and was pinned in 40 seconds. Zach Hellendrung of Boyceville (12-3) earned a 4-1 decision over Angell in the third-place match.

At 138 pounds, the Wolfpack’s Kadyn Jones opened with a 57-second pin over Ethan Johnson of River Falls, but then he was eliminated with a fall in 3:06 against J.D. Minder-Broeckaert of Hudson and an 8-2 loss to Ethan Kester of North Branch, Minn.

The three Wolfpack wrestlers combined to score 30 points, putting the team 18th out of 21 squads in the team standings, ahead of Boyceville (25), Prescott (22) and Flambeau (19). St. Croix Falls won the tournament with 201.5, just getting by Totino Grace (193.5), Hudson (187.5) and Cumberland (182.5).

Cornell-Gilman-Lake Holcombe is off until Feb. 3 when the Lakeland Conference holds its championship meet in Turtle Lake.

Clear Lake Quad

Angell recorded two pins to highlight the Wolfpack’s efforts in Thursday’s Lakeland Conference quad hosted by Clear Lake.

In the 61-6 loss to Clear Lake, Angell got his pin in 4:59 over Miguel Valdovinos in the 215-pound match. After a scoreless first period, Angell got a two-point near fall in the second period and took a 2-1 lead into the third period. In the down position, Angell was able to reverse Valdovinos and get a near fall before finishing off the pin.

Duellman got his first rematch of the season with Clear Lake standout Tyler Sunday at 157 pounds. When the two last met, Sunday barely avoided defeat in the fifth-place match at last February’s WIAA Division 3 state tournament. It was Sunday’s fifth win of the season over Duellman.

This one wasn’t as close. Sunday took advantage of Duellman’s stumble in the final seconds of the first period to get a takedown. In the second period, Sunday got an escape and then a five-point takedown and near fall combination to earn an 8-0 major decision. It was just Duellman’s third loss of the season.

At 138 pounds, Kadyn Jones got the first takedown over Clear Lake’s Steven Wood, but Wood controlled things from there, getting a five-point takedown and near fall combination in the second period to win 5-2.

The Warriors got the rest of their 54 points on forfeits.

In a 39-9 loss to Turtle Lake-Clayton, Angell met Nordquist in the 215-pound bout and got a first-period takedown when the wrestlers got into a bit of a scramble. Angell started the second period in the down position. After both wrestlers got reversals to make it 4-2, Angell rolled through Nordquist and stuck him at the edge of the mat at 3:39.

Duellman rode a first-period takedown, a second-period near fall and a third-period reversal to a 6-3 win over Brandon Wright at 157 pounds. Jones gave up a first-period takedown with 20 seconds left and a second-period escape also with about 20 seconds left and lost a 4-0 decision to Owen Anderson at 138.

Turtle Lake-Clayton scored 36 points on forfeits.