February 1, 2019 at 11:45 a.m.
Hodag wrestlers primed for GNC meet
Hodag wrestlers primed for GNC meet
Plenty of individual accolades will be at stake as the Hodags look for spots on the all-conference team, and Rhinelander has an outside chance of moving up the conference rankings should things break the right way.
"We're going to have a good hard week of training and it's going to be a fun conference tournament," Rhinelander coach Nathan Piasecki said last Friday following a 49-21 loss at Antigo that left the Hodags at 2-3 and in fourth place in the conference standings. "I know we have horses in our lineup that are ready to break through."
The Hodags, who suffered last-match losses to Medford and Tomahawk earlier in the season, still had a chance to control their conference destiny had they upset the Robins in Antigo last Thursday. Instead, Rhinelander sits four points behind Antigo, Medford and Tomahawk, all of whom finished 4-1 in conference duals.
"We expect to be a winning team. Going 2-3 on the season in duals is a tough pill for me to swallow because I expect excellence," Piasecki said. "If we had beaten Antigo, that was our outside chance to still find a way to win (conference) with Medford beating Tomahawk."
Mathematically, the Hodags could still earn a share of the conference title if they win today's meet and Antigo, Medford and Tomahawk all finish no better than fourth. That scenario is extremely unlikely, however.
A more reasonable, but still challenging, task would be to finish second in the tournament. If Rhinelander does that it's guaranteed to move up a spot and finish in at least a tie for third in the conference standings.
Rhinelander's best shot at an individual conference title comes in the form of sophomore Tim Fox, who was the only Hodag to go through the GNC duals without a loss. Four of Fox's five wins in conference competition came at 106 pounds, where he is expected to wrestle today. Lakeland's Sawyer Duir (3-0) is the only other undefeated wrestler in the class, but Duir and the T-Birds avoided Fox in a GNC dual Jan. 10 in Rhinelander. Duir lost in overtime that night to Rhinelander 113-pounder, Hugh Wiese while Fox pinned Ben Nemcek.
"It will be fun to see how he does at conference. It will be a good tournament for him," Piasecki said of Fox, who was the conference runner-up at 106 last year.
The Hodags have three grapplers who went 4-1 during the conference duals - Walker Hartman, Gavin Ostermann and Trevor Knapp. Wiese, Eric Grulke and Ben Sinclair all went 3-2 in the conference at various weights.
"Walker as a sophomore, with 25 wins (overall for the season) already, that's impressive," Piasecki said. "He's a fun guy to see train. A lot of these guys, like Trevor and Ben being .500 or below .500 last year and now being at .750 or better, (are showing improvement).
"We have so many rookies in the lineup that are getting better by the match ... We're a young team - one senior for crying out loud and two juniors and the rest sophomores and freshmen. All these guys are slowly but surely getting better, I have confidence that this team will be something special in the future."
The Hodags are hoping to see a glimmer of that improvement today in the final regular season meet of the year. Rhinelander travels to Merrill for Division 1 regional competition next Saturday.
Today's GNC meet gets underway at 10 a.m. at Raider Hall. The meet will be a six-man round robin in each weight class.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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