MEDFORD WRESTLING - Progress made by Medford’s young wrestlers at Shiocton Duals

MEDFORD WRESTLING

With each dual meet Friday, the Medford Raiders got closer to their opponent and they finally won one in their fourth meet of the night, beating Winneconne 44-30 to place seventh in Shiocton’s Clausen Duals.

The victory in the seventh-place matchup was driven by three pins, three forfeits and a win by technical fall from senior Nick Malchow in the 126-pound match.

The win put Medford at 1-4 overall in dual meets so far this season. The team will start getting more dual meets once Great Northern Conference competition begins Jan. 16 with a home meet against the Lakeland Thunderbirds.

“I have to give credit to all the young guys for going through the meat grinder,” Medford head coach Brandon Marcis said. “I don’t even think some of them realize that we’ve got one of the toughest schedules in the state.

“We had a lot of successes and a lot of good things go our way Friday. You see it when the kids are wrestling. You know they’re close. Sometimes it’s hard to see in those hard tournaments we had in December. I think it was really nice for a lot of the kids to get our first dual-meet win with this group. And we were close against Shawano.”

Against Winneconne, Jordan Lavin completed a 3-1 night with a pin of JJ Mavroff in 1:07 in the 120-pound bout. Lavin was taken down initially, but he escaped and then got the pin.

Lavin suffered a disappointing loss in his first match of the tournament because he had an early lead, but Marcis the sophomore did well from there.

“We’re trying to leverage his cross country stamina a little bit,” Marcis said. “If he takes his guy down, we’re trying to put him back on the feet and just kind of break guys a little bit on the feet because Jordy’s capable of doing that. We found out it kind of works because we did it to the next couple kids after he had that loss. That was just kind of a way to switch things up. Try to get ahead by a bunch on the feet before we go top/bottom and I think that really helped and I think that helped his confidence too.”

At 150 pounds, Parker Lissner needed just 1:19 to get his win over Gavyn Fitzwater, turning his first takedown into a pin. At 175 pounds, senior Paxton Rothmeier, who rejoined the team during the holiday break, earned his third win of the night with a pin in 1:37 over Carson Piotraschke. Rothmeier already had scored a takedown and a pair of two-point near falls to lead 7-0 before the pin.

Malchow’s win was a 15-0 technical fall over James Barone, which was earned with a takedown and three four-point near falls. Freshman Levi Zuleger got a nice win, earning a 10-6 decision over Tyler Engelke in the 144-pound bout. He built a 10-2 lead through two periods, which gave him plenty of cushion despite giving up a third-period near fall.

“I feel like Nick Malchow wrestled like a maniac,” Marcis said. “I feel like he’s really starting to come around to his full potential as a senior, just seeing the way he conducts himself and the way he approaches his matches. Same thing with Parker. They’re getting there.”

Medford’s wins by forfeit came in consecutive matches and went to freshmen Ashton Noland at 190 pounds, Ian Stickney at 215 pounds and Jackson Mayer at 285 pounds. For Noland, the forfeit capped a solid 3-1 night of wrestling and Stickney also went 3-1 with three forfeit wins.

At 113 pounds, Raider Ayden Tyznik was pinned in 4:52 by Briar Vroman, who had a technical fall locked up but got the extra team point by finishing the pin. Brady Marks pinned Medford’s Ahrlen Lekie in 3:20 at 132 pounds and James Nozar pinned Raider Corey McVicker in 55 seconds at 138 pounds. Medford forfeited at 106 and 157 pounds. There was a double forfeit at 165.

Medford landed in the seventh-place dual after going 0-3 in its pool.

First, the host Shiocton Chiefs handled the Raiders 65-15.

The dual meet started on a good note with Tyznik winning the 113-pound match 6-3 over Tucker Keberlein. Tyznik set the tone with the first takedown for a 3-0 lead. The match, though, was tied 3-3 going into the third period when Tyznik broke that tie with a takedown 12 seconds in.

After that, Shiocton won eight straight matches to take a 48-3 lead. Rothmeier stopped the run by pinning Luis Vasquez in 26 seconds at 175 pounds and Mayer took a forfeit at 285.

Medford forfeited at 157, 165 and 106 pounds. Losing by pin were Lavin in 2:51 at 120 pounds, Malchow in 30 seconds at 126, Lekie in 1:20 at 132, McVicker in 32 seconds at 138, Zuleger in 1:48 at 144, Lissner in 1:24 at 150 and Noland in 3:02 at 190 pounds. Tristan Mueller won by technical fall 17-1 over Stickney at 215 pounds.

The Slinger Owls defeated Medford 5723 in round two. Again, Medford got off to a good start. Malchow pinned Brody Koch in just 37 seconds at 120 pounds and Lavin dominated Luke Kalina in a 19-3 technical fall at 126 pounds for an 11-0 Raiders’ lead.

But the Owls turned things around quickly with seven straight wins to move ahead 40-11. Noland stopped that run with a pin in 3:12 over Slinger’s Cayden Rauch in the 190pound bout. He had just gotten his second takedown of the match and led 6-2 at the time of the fall. Stickney then took a forfeit at 215.

“One thing to note would be Ashton Noland going 3-1,” Marcis said. “To me, that’s an outstanding thing for a young man at 190 pounds who just started wrestling last year to go 3-1 at a varsity dual tournament. That was really cool.”

Elijah Terrell, a Division 1 state qualifier last year at 157 pounds, earned an 18-1 technical fall over Rothmeier, Greyson Tonsor was a 19-2 technical fall winner over Zuleger at 144 pounds and Paxton Gish was a 16-0 technical fall winner over Tyznik at 113 pounds.

Losing by pin were Lekie in 34 seconds, McVicker in 21 seconds, Lissner in 3:21 and Mayer in 1:03. The Raiders again forfeited at 157, 165 and 106.

Slinger went 3-0 to win the pool. That included a 41-34 win over Shiocton in round three.

Three Raiders won by pin in a 48-33 loss to Shawano in round three.

Lavin got the first one, pinning Austin Stickney at 1:48 in the 126-pound bout. Lissner got his first win of the night with a 46-second pin of Kian Morstad at 157 pounds. Noland stuck Duane Gristeau-Blanche at 1:50 in the 190-pound match. He got the takedown just 16 seconds in and was able to maintain control and finish it from there.

Rothmeier outlasted Drew Chelberg 1610 in the 175-pound match. Rothmeier built a 13-4 lead through two periods and led 14-4 after a third-period escape before Chelberg closed the gap with two takedowns in the last 30 seconds.

McVicker and Ian Stickney won matches by forfeit. Medford forfeited at 150, 165 and 106 pounds. Losing by pin were Lekie, Zuleger, Mayer, Tyznik and Malchow.

Auburndale went 3-0 in the other pool and won the tournament’s championship dual 43-25 over Slinger. Shiocton beat Stevens Point 50-23 in the third-place dual and Kiel beat Shawano 41-33 in the fifth-place dual.

Medford will see more tough competition Saturday when its top wrestlers head to the Freedom Irish Invitational. The girls will go to Cadott and the majority of the team’s wrestlers will compete in a JV tournament at Wausau East.

From there, the Raiders will take their best shot at Great Northern Conference competition.

“We are talking about just getting ready for the conference season because all of conference duals are basically squished into two weeks,” Marcis said. “Really it’s probably best for us to have all of the experience we’ve gained this season and come into it that way. I’m definitely optimistic going into our conference duals that we’ll find some success.”

Two girls tourneys

Medford’s two female wrestlers competed twice in a three-day span, wrestling at Shiocton Saturday and at Wausau East on Monday.

At Shiocton’s Clausen Classic, Avery Losiewicz went 3-0 to win the 138-pound championship. The top seed in the 13wrestler bracket, Losiewicz got a bye into the quarterfinals where she opened with a 29-second pin of Auburndale’s Jasmine Hebert. In the semifinals, she had to work a little longer but she did get her pin in 3:06 and defeated Vivian Waldburger, a 14-6 wrestler from Shawano.

In the finals, Losiewicz ended it fairly quickly, pinning 18-6 Leah Kapla of Pulaski in 1:10.

At 145 pounds, Raider Bridget Wesle went 1-2 and placed seventh out of eight wrestlers.

Lena’s Miram Alberts took the quarterfinal match with a 17-2 technical fall. Winneconne’s Jayden Mahlke won by major decision 14-4 in the consolation semifinals. Wesle had a 4-3 lead after one period, but a second-period reversal swung the match the other way. Wesle ended her day with a quick 17-second win by pin over Jessalin Grigg of the Green Bay West/East/Southwest Co-op.

Losiewicz and Wesle combined for 32 team points, putting Medford 16th out of 22 squads in the team standings. Winneconne took home the team championship with 106 points, two more than Horicon and 11 better than Shawano.

At East Monday, Losiewicz won both of her matches and Wesle went 2-1.

Ashton Noland