The Wittenberg-Birnamwood High School wrestling team took control of the Central Wisconsin Conference with a 52-13 win Thursday over Bonduel.
“Wittenberg-Birnamwood has a very, very good team,” Bonduel coach Chris Rank said. “They’ve been handling the conference the last several years; this year is probably the best team that they’ve had. Most years we have a legit shot at being conference champions. It doesn’t look like that is going to be the case this year.”
Both of the team’s coaches, though, said the final score didn’t reflect how close the meet really was.
“We always know coming into Bonduel, it’s always going to be tough,” Wittenberg-Birnamwood coach Troy Ostrowski said. “I know the score looks like it wasn’t close, but we had a lot of good matches tonight.”
The Chargers, ranked No. 4 in Division 2 in the state by Crossface Magazine, opened the meet with four straight pins to take a 24-0 lead on the hosting Bears. Witt-Birn sophomore August Peplinski pinned Bennett Gunderson in 4:49. Nick Stringfellow (220) pinned Eric Godin in 2:59, and heavyweight John White Wing made short work of Race McClone with a pin in 46 seconds. Stetson Potrykus (106) pinned Scott Gunderson in 52 seconds.
Bonduel, which is ranked No. 9 in Division 3, had to forfeit to Zachary Urquhart at 113 pounds.
Bonduel sophomore Garrett Siolka (120) put up good fight against Ben Vosters, who is ranked No. 9 in the state at 120 pounds. Despite pushing the senior the full three periods, Siolka took a 11-5 loss.
At 126 pounds, Bonduel got on the scoreboard with a win by junior Austin Siolka, who beat Jesse Sprague 7-1 to cut the Chargers’ lead to 33-3. Bonduel’s Travis Wollenberg then beat Gavin Czerwonka 6-3 at 132 pounds.
Witt-Birn senior Bobby Uttecht (138) won a 12-2 decision over Gregg Shafer and teammate Branden Randall (145) beat Sam Kroening by pin in 1:16.
Bonduel’s Dan Tauchen (152) took care of Griffin Magee with a 10-0 decision.
At 160 pounds, Bonduel decided to give a forfeit win to Wittenberg-Birnamwood’s Braxton Potrykus, who is ranked No. 6 in the state, and move Mitch Sokolski and Jacob Wudtke both up a weight class.
The strategy almost worked. Wudtke (182) pulled off a 2-1 decision over Hunter Kreger, getting two points on a reversal in the final minute of the match.
“That was a good match,” Rank said. “It ended up about how I had it. I thought we would come out on top in a close one and that was the case.”
Sokolski (170) struggled with Wittenberg-Birnamwood freshman Alex Peplinski, who put together a 6-0 decision to get the win.
“I was impressed with our freshman winning that match,” Ostrowski said.
Ostrowski said his team doesn’t talk about the possibility of winning a conference championship or more.
“We don’t talk about what our goal is,” Ostrowski said. “We just talk about every week getting better.”
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