February 6, 2017 at 3:36 p.m.
Hodag wrestlers finish 2nd in GNC tourney, ending title run
Hodag wrestlers finish 2nd in GNC tourney, ending title run
Yet this year, the Hodags dropped two dual meets, so heading into the GNC Tournament at Antigo High School on Saturday, they needed some help to earn a share of the conference title.
Rhinelander needed to win the tournament for a fourth consecutive year and needed unbeaten Medford to finish no better than third place.
The Hodags wrestled a strong tournament but it wasn't quite good enough as they placed second with 394 points, just 26 behind champion Medford.
"Kind of the story of our year," Rhinelander head coach Paul Ellenbecker said. "We had some ups and downs, we never put it all together. We're losing matches that in the past it seemed like in the conference tournament we had some magic and won. We just made too many mistakes today to beat Medford."
Rhinelander had three conference champions in Jacob DeMeyer at 152 pounds, Alec Kurtz at 182 and Colton Krueger at 220.
Where the Hodags ran into trouble was in getting only one runner-up finish: Alec Bess at 170 pounds.
Eight wrestlers finished in third place for Rhinelander: Reuben Guzik, Anthony Kowalski, Tyler Olson, Alec Modrow, Eric Grulke, Kyle Kuester, Scott Fox and Trevor Knapp.
Meanwhile, Medford tallied six champions, three second-place finishers and two that placed third.
"Conference season is over now and I thought we were going to be the conference champs and came up short," Ellenbecker said. "We have a lot of room to grow for next year. Now it turns into an individual season. We're going to look at it from an individual standpoint and try to get as many guys down to (the WIAA state tournament in) Madison as we can."
Ellenbecker raised some eyebrows by opting to bump DeMeyer up from 145 to 152 for this tournament.
The weight class proved to be no issue for the junior as he remained undefeated and repeated as a GNC champion.
"When the Antigo 145-pounder was out I thought we'd get more points by moving Jacob up," Ellenbecker said. "He's the best wrestler in this tournament and he's probably the best wrestler in central Wisconsin. We can put him wherever we need to and 152 was a tougher weight class today. He breezed through 152 and allowed Kyle [Kuester] to wrestle 145, his natural weight."
Kurtz and Krueger blew through their respective brackets, pinning all of their opponents.
Ellenbecker was impressed with Modrow's performance - he placed third at 132 - particularly after an injury-plagued season.
"He's hurt and beat up with his knee and him came in and took a third," Ellenbecker said. "Senior year and left it out there and tried to give us a chance. Without him, it wouldn't have been close and we would have had to forfeit [that class] basically. I'm proud of how he wrestled and competed. All of our guys try hard and the effort is always there, but when you want to be a higher level wrestlers, you're going to have to put higher level effort in and wrestle more than just in our season. We obviously need more matches, more practice in tight matches, so when we get into these nitty- gritty matches we're better prepared."
Rhinelander is scheduled to compete in the WIAA Division 1 Regionals this coming Saturday at Merrill High School.
Nick Sabato may be reached at [email protected] or via Twitter @SabatoNick.
Comments:
You must login to comment.