It was a bittersweet day for the Oconto Falls High School wrestling team at the WIAA Division 2 regional Saturday at OFHS.
The young Panthers advanced six wrestlers to sectionals, but did not qualify for the team sectionals for the first time in a number of years.
“Six was kind of the magic number,” Oconto Falls tri-head coach Marc Kinziger said. “I was hoping for as many as seven or eight; that’s if we would have had really good days out of some guys.”
Dewey Krueger, Nate Trepanier, Brett Ash and Jake Yatso won individual regional titles, while Sam Konitzer and Bryce Ash placed second in their weight classes.
With only the top team in each regional advancing, Oconto Falls (227.5 points) placed second to Freedom (279.5).
“I don’t know how many years it’s been since we haven’t qualified as a team, but certainly seeing what Freedom had, we were on the outside looking in to beating them,” Kinziger said. “After I reflected on the day and how the season for most of the guys ended up, to get six to sectionals is good. We’ve seen a lot of growth.”
Krueger, the defending state champion at 132, had little problem mowing down the competition at 145. The senior (36-1) scored a first-period pin in the semifinals and won the title match with a 10-2 major decision over Freedom’s Blaz Daul.
Trepanier (29-9), a freshman, cruised in the 126 semifinals and defeated Freedom’s Cody Walrath, who placed second at state last year, with a 7-5 decision to win the championship.
“Nate might have a really good chance to make it out of sectionals to state,” Kinziger said. “He beat the No. 2-ranked kid in the state, so that’s a huge win for him.”
Trepanier has wrestled well recently after finding a permanent spot in Oconto Falls’ lineup.
“He’s kind of been flying under the radar because he took nine losses on the year, but a number of those were when he was wrestling as high as 152,” Kinziger said. “He couldn’t get to 126 right away and he couldn’t cut the lineup anywhere else, so he was wrestling way up there.”
Brett Ash (34-3) punched his first ticket to sectionals by winning the 132-pound bracket. The junior went 2-0 and downed Peshtigo’s Hunter Madden by a 7-4 decision in the championship match.
“Looking at sectionals, he probably has the strongest record there, but he’ll have some good competition,” Kinziger said.
Yatso (21-16) had a solid afternoon and beat Tyler Brissette of Peshtigo with a 6-3 decision to take home the title at 152.
“He’s come on strong late in the year,” Kinziger said. “He had quite a few losses early in the year and we couldn’t get him going. But we worked on some technique things with him, working on a little bit different style for him, and he pulled out a first place.”
Bryce Ash (113) lost the championship match, but returned in wrestlebacks to down Peshtigo’s Dylan Willequette with a first-period pin (1:24). The freshman went 2-1 on the day to advance to sectionals.
Sam Konitzer (138) got to the finals before falling to Freedom’s Seth Vosters by a 5-1 decision. The junior faces a tough bracket at sectionals.
Placing third for the Panthers were Ben Stoinski (120), MacKinley Winkler (182), Kyle Wolf (195), Collin Wall (220) and Kaleb Westcott (285)
“I’m really happy with third place for some of those guys,” Kinziger said. “Those aren’t disappointing thirds, but I know they’re disappointed because they want to go on. However, from the standpoint where we were a couple of weeks ago, that was pretty good.”
Finishing fourth for the Panthers were Evan Konitzer (106), who lost two tight matches, Michael Friedman (160) and Nate Brauer (170).
Oconto Falls will compete in the Division 2 sectional Saturday at Seymour. Wrestling starts at 10:30 a.m.
Kinziger hopes two or three of his wrestlers can advance to state. However, it’s not going to be easy.
“Our message this week is, ‘You wrestle your heart out to earn that trip down to Madison,’ ” he said. “Anything can happen Saturday, that’s for sure. I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff over the years on sectional Saturday. No one’s a shoo-in and no one’s a shoo-out, so to speak.”
Categories
