GNC WRESTLING DUALS - Medford easily sweeps double-dual in Antigo; title imminent

GNC WRESTLING DUALS

The Medford wrestlers handily defeated Lakeland and host Antigo Thursday to complete the dual-meet portion of their Great Northern Conference schedule at 5-0.

With three teams finishing two wins behind them at 3-2 in the duals, the Raiders should have little trouble clinching the outright season championship at the conference’s championship meet set for Saturday, Feb. 3 at Antigo. A title would be Medford’s sixth straight outright or shared GNC title.

While there was little doubt Medford would win Thursday’s dual meets, there were still things to work on and teaching points that head coach Brandon Marcis said will be important as the season’s biggest meets quickly approach.

“It’s always about trying to wrestle your best, trying to wrestle each match like it’s the state finals,” Marcis said. “We wrestled good. There were a couple spots. You want to wrestle perfect and you want to wrestle perfect come February. Celebrating our successes and the fact that we did win is a good thing, but then we also still have to work on being disciplined and we’re working on some of our areas that we can get better in. Pins are the big one. I don’t care who we’re wrestling, we just can’t get pinned. That’s going to be everything come that regional and team sectional hopefully. Just being disciplined on that and believing that we can go six minutes with everybody. We got caught in a couple spots, we got pinned a couple of times.”

Medford may have given up some pins, but the Raiders certainly did the majority of the pinning.

The Raiders began Thursday night by riding eight pins and a forfeit to a 5721 win over Lakeland. There were two matches that went the distance in the dual with each team winning one.

At 138 pounds, Owen Higgins scored a 9-4 win over one of Lakeland’s top wrestlers, Ashton Bremer. Higgins had Bremer’s arms and chest locked up and nearly got a first-period pin, but settled for a quick 7-1 lead. An exchange of reversals in the second period made it 9-3 before Higgins rode Bremer out through most of the third.

At 120 pounds, Lakeland’s Justin Funmaker beat Nick Malchow 10-3, but it was closer than the score indicated. It was a 4-1 match going into the third and two escapes got Malchow within 6-3 before Malchow had to take a shot and Funmaker took him down and got a near fall in the last 12 seconds.

Medford started the dual with five straight pins. Cory Lindahl got up 4-0 in the first period and eventually pinned Jerome LaBarge in 3:40 at 150 pounds. Gage Losiewicz stuck Tyson Skubal in 1:18 at 157, Paxton Rothmeier pinned Tommy Howard in 1:06 at 165, Logan Kawa got Kenny Thompson in 1:34 at 175 and Evan Wilkins needed just 1:18 to pin Carter McCray at 190.

Leonard Chosa caught Medford’s Braxton Weissmiller early and pinned him in 1:49, but Max Dietzman answered with a strong outing in the heavyweight match with T-Bird Esaube Brown, pinning him in 3:13. Logan Gray-Ives, one of the T-Birds’ top wrestlers, pinned Caden Olson in 5:45 at 106 pounds and the Raiders got a forfeit at 113.

Charlie Ernst pinned Medford’s Broden Schilling in 3:40 at 126 pounds. That match was tied 2-2 when Ernst caught Schilling and took advantage. Jude Stark took a forfeit at 132 and Parker Lissner, in his first match back from injury, controlled Kade Elm and pinned him in 3:22 in the 144-pound bout.

Seven pins, a forfeit and a win by decision got Medford out to a 51-0 lead over Antigo before the Raiders finished things off at 69-12.

The big early run started at 157 pounds with a Losiewicz pin in 1:25 over Levi Binversie. Rothmeier tied Jack Stronstad at 2-2 with a reversal and finished his move with a pin at 1:10 at 165. Kawa got a double-leg takedown on Wyat Beaber and finished it with a pin at 2:29 in the 175-pound match. Wilkins was ahead 7-0 after a near fall and finished his pin of Caleb Vandenlangenberg at 3:17 in the 190-pound bout.

After a scoreless first period, Weissmiller reversed Antigo’s Johanan Taylor and pinned him at 2:59. Dietzman quickly pinned Trystin Powell in 22 seconds. Olson took a forfeit at 106 pounds, Ayden Tyznik pinned Antigo’s Jonathan Wissbroecker in 3:30 at 113 pounds and the run ended with Malchow wrestling well and taking a 12-8 decision over Owen Medo at 120 pounds. Malchow got a firstperiod takedown and near fall to jump ahead 5-0. He extended the lead to 8-0 with another near fall early in the second before Medo got two takedowns to tighten the match up at 9-5. Malchow’s takedown in the third period gave him the cushion he needed to finish it off.

Jack Sundermeyer got Antigo on the board with a pin of Schilling in 3:13. Stark took another forfeit, Higgins pinned Seth Medo in 1:06 and Lissner pinned Michael Hofrichter in 1:45 at 144 pounds before Medford forfeited to Jayson Arrowood at 150 pounds.

Lakeland (3-2) beat Mosinee 40-33 and Mosinee (3-2) beat 0-5 Antigo 45-30 in the meet’s other duals.