February 28, 2022 at 8:38 a.m.
Ostermann stopped just shy of top six at state wrestling
Ostermann stopped just shy of top six at state wrestling
Ostermann went 2-2 in the tournament and was knocked out in the second round of the consolation bracket Friday afternoon at the Kohl Center in Madison.
Ostermann (39-6) was eliminated on Friday when he was pinned late in the first period by De Pere's Michael Alexander. A win in that match would advanced Ostermann to Saturday's placement rounds in the Division 1, 182-pound weight class.
"It's tough that I didn't get a place but, overall, I had fun," Ostermann said afterward. "It was a great season. I had a good team, good coaches."
"We put ourselves in a position where we had every opportunity to place and came up one match short," Rhinelander coach Scottie Arneson added.
Ostermann began his tournament Thursday afternoon with an 8-0 major decision over Verona's Cael Wozniak before running into the second seed in the bracket, Waterford's Evan Danowski, in the semifinals. Danowski won a high-scoring affair, 16-12, to relegate Ostermann to the consolation bracket.
"It was a real tough match," Ostermann said. "There was a lot of close stuff, but there were definitely points I gave up that shouldn't have happened. I should have had a normal mat return and I tried doing something funky and put myself on my back."
While Ostermann rued the mistake, Arneson said his unorthodox style served as a benefit much of the season.
"His style is tough to wrestle. After (the quarterfinal match), I don't think anybody was signing up to wrestle him," Arneson said. "That guy who was seeded second, I don't think he was prepared for what we had to offer to beat up on us like he assumed he thought he was going to do.
"His wrestling is just a unique style. If you try to tame it then I think that's when he second-guesses himself and doesn't wrestle to his full potential. Every match I just said, 'Hey, go out there, play the game. Do it to them before they do it to you.' He was able to do that in two of the matches this weekend."
Ostermann pinned Muskego's Adam Dzievit in the first round of the consolation bracket to advance to the bout against Alexander, the No. 3 seed in the bracket who was stunned in the quarterfinals - getting pinned while leading in the third period.
Ostermann gave up a takedown late in the first period against Alexander and could not recover.
"I just did something stupid, got put on my back and just got stuck there. I tried fighting," Ostermann said.
Regardless, Arneson said Ostermann made an impression at his first state tournament.
"I think he wrestled really well. I know a lot of people down at the state tournament, and everybody that I saw said that he wrestled well," he said. "Nobody believes the story when I tell them about how he came about, taking a couple of years off.
"We're proud of him, how hard he worked and what he's brought to the program."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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