January 10, 2018 at 1:12 p.m.
Hodag wrestlers control Mosinee 54-26
Hodag wrestlers control Mosinee 54-26
The Hodags jumped out to a big early lead, and won six of the 11 contested matches, en route to 54-26 victory over the Indians at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium.
Rhinelander (3-0 Great Northern) essentially had the match locked up after an early 30-point run gave the Hodags a commanding lead. Rhinelander clinched the match with five bouts remaining after Mosinee forfeited to two of the Hodags' ranked wrestlers - Alec Kurtz at 195 pounds and Colton Krueger at 220.
"We did a better job, overall, tonight of wrestling in general," Ellenbecker said following the win. "We've still got some things we need to work on. We had some chances to put some matches away and we didn't do it. But we're getting there. Much better energy. We competed a lot better. Mosinee's young but they're talented and they're going to be pretty good in a couple years."
In particular, Ellenbecker called on some of his "average Joes" to wrestle at or above average following the Lakeland dual. They did early on in the match. Walker Hartman got a first-period pin over Matt Fochs at 138 to put the Hodags won the board. Mosinee then worked around Eric Grulke at 145, bumping Jake Searing up to 152 for a potential matchup against Alex Monk. The Hodags, who had the last chance to declare their wrestler for the bout, pulled a last-second switcheroo and put Kyle Kuester in at 152. Kuester pinned Searing in 1 minute, 11 seconds.
After second-ranked Jacob DeMeyer earned a second-period pin at 160, Rhinelander's Scott Fox followed with a late third-period pin over Jaydon Cherek to give Rhinelander a 30-5 lead in the match.
Ellenbecker said both Hartman and Scott Fox are better than their records indicate, due to some of the tough competition the Hodags have wrestled during the first month and a half of the season.
"Their records, you are what your record says you are, but who we've wrestled and where we've wrestled in comparable matches, it wouldn't shock me to see both of those guys jump out and make a big jump in the near future," he said.
The margin of victory could have been greater for the Hodags if not for a couple of third-period leads that slipped away. Hunter Greyhair was pinned by Mosinee's TJ Obremski after leading much of the match at 182 while Tim Fox gave up back points in the final seconds to lose to Mosinee's Chase Kmonsena at 106, 10-7.
Greyhair led 5-1 after one period and was still ahead 5-2 late in the second until Obremski got a takedown with five seconds remaining to trim the lead to one. The two started on their feet in the third. Obremski got a takedown to take the lead with 54 seconds left and pinned Greyhair 22 seconds later.
"Hunter Greyhair's a young wrestler that hasn't had a lot of grind matches," Ellenbecker said. "I think Hunter thought he was just going to tear the kid up when he got ahead. He never put the kid away, the kid started coming back and Hunter got anxious and nervous. You could tell toward the end that the anxiety got to him and he couldn't finish the match."
Tim Fox led 6-3 following a reversal 10 seconds into the third and was still up 7-5 following an escape with 57 seconds left. Kmosena took Fox down to tie the match with 40 seconds left and then turned Fox before he could escape again for what proved to be the winning points.
"Tim was coming up and the kid hit kind of an Okie chokey type deal. It's one of those deals were Tim's getting away and winning the match and I don't think Tim expected the kid to try to score and it kind of took Tim by shock," Ellenbecker said. "I think it's good Tim will get another shot at him in the conference tournament. They're pretty evenly-matched kids and, depending on how it happens, Tim could be a conference champ. It's between him and that other kid for the conference title. Coming back in the rematch, I like Timmy's chances."
Mosinee's Adam Pecha pinned Isabella Anderson at 113 to trim Rhinelander's lead to 42-26 with two matches left, but seniors Reuben Guzik and Tyler Olson finished the match with back-to-back pins for the Hodags. Next up for Rhinelander is a trip to Stevens Point for an eight-team invite on Saturday.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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