April 3, 2023 at 8:16 a.m.
Team review: RHS wrestling
Low numbers, first girls' season top stories for grapplers
Team review: RHS wrestling
A combination of injuries and athletes opting to participate in other activities left the Hodags thin throughout the season. Rhinelander did not win a dual meet in 2022-23, mainly because on most nights it was forfeiting nearly half the weight classes.
The Hodags showed some signs of life toward the end of the season, getting six wrestlers in the top three of their respective weight classes at the Great Northern Conference tournament, but that still was not enough to get Rhinelander out of last place in the conference standings. The Hodags finished 12 points out of fourth place.
"Having six out of eight on the podium and everybody wrestling as predicted or even a little bit better, I think is a good thing, but only filling eight of the weight classes is still the Kryptonite," coach Scottie Arneson said.
The Hodags finished with only one sectional qualifier on the boys' side in junior Owen Kurtz. On the girls' side, sisters Abby and Mya Swanson made up the Hodags' first official girls' wrestling team, with Abby Swanson finishing her high school career on the state podium.
Here are five storylines from the season.
Inaugural girls' season
The 2022-23 season marked the second year that the WIAA sponsored a separate state girls' wrestling tournament, and the first official year for the Hodag girls' wrestling program.
The program was green-lighted by the School District of Rhinelander Board of Education last October. Though it worked very closely with the boys' team, the designation allowed the school to hire a girls' head coach, Eric Gobin, and allowed the girls to set their own schedule, sometimes competing in different tournaments than the boys.
Numbers were low in this inaugural season, but Gobin said he hopes things will start to grow from the bottom up.
"I think it will take a couple of years for, one the sport to kind of grow a little bit, and then to also get some of the younger wrestlers that have been part of it in kids' club and middle school, trying to get them kind of situated at the high school," he said.
The WIAA did its part this year, moving the girls' state tournament to the Kohl Center in Madison and having it run in conjunction with the boys' individual state tournament. The inaugural event was held in January 2022 in La Crosse.
"It was literally so much better than last year," Abby Swanson said. "Last year was super empty. There were no spectators anywhere. It was really cool to wrestle alongside the boys in a better venue. It was really cool. It was hyped up."
Abby Swanson went 19-7 on the season, won her sectional bracket and qualified for the state tournament. Mya Swanson went 14-7, losing in the sectional semifinals.
Abby at state
Swanson nearly finished her career a state champion. Though the she was seeded ninth in the 16-wrestler bracket at 185 pounds, her opening round match against eighth-seeded Ella Creighton of Badger proved to be a championship-caliber bout.
The two wrestlers were tied 0-0 after two periods and Creighton got a reversal in the third that ultimately proved to be the difference in a 2-1 decision.
Creighton went on to pin every other opponent she faced en route to the state title. Swanson fought her way through the wrestleback - including wins over the Nos. 1 and 2 seeds - to take third.
"It's kind of bittersweet," Swanson said after winning the third-place match over Wausau West's Christiana Nordstrom, who she had also defeated to win the sectional title. "It's cool that I made it higher than last year, but I didn't win it, which was my goal."
Still Gobin said, following a fifth-place finish in the inaugural state tournament, Swanson's legacy as a girls' wrestling trailblazer in Rhinelander is secure.
"Not only was she Rhinelander's first girls' state place winner, but she did it back-to-back," he said. "She's the first and second, so it's really kind of cool her ending her high school career here as a two-time state placer."
Making progress
On the boys' side, though the Hodags did not win any duals, there were signs of progress throughout the year.
The Hodags went .500 or better in contested matches in three of their five conference dual meets, going 4-3 against Lakeland, 4-4 against Mosinee and 3-3 against Tomahawk. That was not enough, however, to overcome the number of forfeits the Hodags had in the lineup.
"We knew that we probably weren't going to be winning the dual meets but every match we go out there we try to do our best to win," Arneson said following the Lakeland match. "Tonight we won more matches than we lost. That's really what we're trying to do ... We're getting better, it's just the lack of numbers right now. If we can get those numbers up, who knows where we can be."
Junior Owen Kurtz was Rhinelander's lone conference champion, edging Medford's Max Dietzman in overtime for the heavyweight title.
Aiden Ostermann (120), Kyle Wiese (126) Cyrus Leisure (132), Dresden Klaver (138) and Logan Schwinger (170) all scored third-place finishes in their weight classes.
Kurtz stopped short again
Kurtz went 22-8 on the season, which started late as he recovered from a shoulder injury he sustained during the football season. He did not compete until the Northern Badger Classic in River Falls in late December.
Arneson said much of the year was spent making up for lost time getting Kurtz back into wrestling shape in time for the WIAA tournament.
Kurtz appeared to be there. He won the conference tournament and then followed that up with a regional title, but déjà vu befell Kurtz at sectionals. For the second straight year, Kurtz had two chances to wrestle his way into the state tournament, only to fall short. This time around he stopped by Ashwaubenon's Troy Dietzler 30 seconds into the championship match and then was pinned late in the first period of the second-place match by Bay Port's Vaughn Campbell.
After sectionals, Arneson said he did not see a silver lining in Kurtz's injury-abbreviated season.
"I think the expectations need to be set high for him - even higher than they are," he said. "I think Owen Kurtz can be a state champion next year, but that's between his ears and the amount of effort he wants to give to try to get there."
What's next
Kurtz will be one of five all-conference wrestlers returning for the Hodags, joining Ostermann (24-16), Schwinger (19-18), Klaver (16-17) and Leisure (1-2). Between the Hodags' returning athletes and a few wrestlers coming up from the middle school level, Arneson is hopeful the team can fill some more weight classes going forward.
"The rest of the guys that are going to be coming back next year, I think we've got a good group that will hopefully spawn into some more numbers, but the group that will be coming back will be something special here in the future," he said.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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