RHS wrestlers back in GNC win column

After a winless dual meet season in 2022-23, the Rhinelander High School wrestling team got back on the good side of the win-loss column in GNC play on Thursday night, and was not far away from repeating the feat twice over.

Senior Owen Kurtz pinned Antigo’s Jordy Pregler to break a 36-all tie and give the Hodags a 42-36 victory over the Red Robins as part of a Great Northern Conference quadrangular Thursday night in Tomahawk. The Hodags split their matches on the night, falling to Lakeland later in the evening by an identical 42-36 score. 

The win for Rhinelander (2-4, 1-3 Great Northern) was the team’s first in Great Northern Conference action since defeating Antigo 42-12 Jan. 27, 2022. 

“Our kids wrestled really hard. It was awesome to see the hard work and their motivation to make sure that they got the team points that they needed to get, or saved team points that they needed to save,” Hodag coach Scottie Arneson said. 

Up 30-12 at one point in the Antigo dual, the Hodags gave up 24 unanswered team points via a pair of losses by pin and a couple of forfeits. Down 36-30 with two matches remaining, the Hodags got a first-period pin by junior Logan Schwinger over Antigo’s Caleb Vandenlandenberg at 190 pounds to tie the dual. That set the stage for Kurtz (29-1), the team’s winningest wrestler on the year. 

    Rhinelander’s Owen Kurtz stares down Lakeland’s Leonard Chosa during a GNC dual meet in Tomahawk Thursday, Jan. 11. Kurtz, who moved to 29-1 on the year with seven wins between Thursday’s and Saturday’s competitions, secured a match-clinching pin in the Hodags’ dual against Antigo on Thursday. (Brett LaBore/Lakeland Times)
  

Kurtz got the opening takedown and never let Pregler off the mat, finishing the pin in 55 seconds. 

“I was feeling pretty good when I saw the score tied going into the last match,” Arneson said. “When we have one of our leaders starting off the dual and ending the dual, I feel we have a pretty good chance.”

Reid Schultz (19-5) opened the dual with a first-period pin on Antigo’s Tristen Powell at 285. Gavin Liebherr (106) picked up a forfeit win and the Hodags got pins from Robert Schramke (132), Dresden Klaver (138) and Cyrus Leisure (145) to jump ahead 30-12.

The Hodags could not quite pull off the same heavyweight heroics in the dual against Lakeland. Maxi Singhammer was pinned at 175 pounds, putting the Hodags down 42-24 with three bouts remaining. Rhinelander needed to run the table with three pins to earn the victory on a tiebreaker. 

Rhinelander got the first as Schwinger stopped Carter McCray in 35 seconds at 190, but Lakeland’s Leonard Chosa and Esuabe Brown managed to stay off of their backs in the final two matches to secure the win for the T-Birds. 

Kurtz and Chosa were tied 0-0 after two periods before Kurtz finally got an escape and a takedown in the third to win a 3-0 decision at 215. Schultz picked up a 9-2 decision over Brown at 285.

“Their big guys just did a really good job of staying disciplined and not giving up extra team points. I feel like we’re definitely good enough to get pins in those matches, but it didn’t happen,” Arneson said. “In order to win that dual we have to wrestle better, not give up so many pins and get pins whenever we can.”

Rhinelander ended up forfeiting three weight classes on the night. Already with a hole at 165, Aiden Ostermann was a scratch leaving the team’s 157-pound spot vacant. Rhinelander also forfeited at 126 against Lakeland after Avrom Barr was shaken up in a loss to Antigo earlier in the evening. 

“We were missing one right in the middle, otherwise, we would have filled 13 weight classes,” Arneson said. “Then we had to forfeit 126 because of an injury. But, by the end of the year, I feel like our team can be toward the top end of the conference at the conference tournament.”

Rhinelander led 24-18 in the dual after Schramke, Klaver and Leisure picked up their second wins of the evening, all via first-period pins.

“They wrestled really well. The team did as a whole, but those three coming back-to-back and dual meets right in a row, getting those pins for our team, are huge,” Arneson said. “That’s just the leadership that our team has right in the middle there.”

Two of Rhinelander’s three losses in conference have come by 18 points or fewer, and the Hodags also have a nine-point loss to Tomahawk in a non-conference dual earlier this year. Those two teams will face off Thursday night in Rhinelander as part of a triangular meet that will also include Wausau East. Arneson said, as his team gains experience and gets closer to fielding a full lineup, the Hodags are eager to make some noise when the GNC tournament rolls around in Antigo Feb. 3.

“If we just continue to work hard in the practice room, I don’t think there’s many teams in the conference that can match our horsepower at the conference tournament,” he said.

Valders tournament

The Hodags braved the snowstorm that impacted much of the state and traveled down to Valders for an invite on Saturday . 

The team departed Rhinelander early Friday morning to get ahead of the storm. Other teams weren’t so lucky. The majority of the 18-team field canceled because of the storm that dropped more than a foot of snow in the far eastern portion of the state. Only two other teams were able to participate.

“I think if we wouldn’t have traveled all that way, they wouldn’t have had it if it just Manitowoc and Valders, because they wrestle often enough,” Arneson said. “Since we traveled all that way, they wanted to try and get as many matches as possible.”

The Hodags finished third in a modified scramble format. The schools consolidated the 14 standard weight classes down to seven to create as many wrestling opportunities as possible. Rhinelander fared best in the heavyweights. Schwinger, Singhammer and Gavin Dotter finished 1-2-3 in the 190-pound bracket. Kurtz won the 285-bracket in which, among his five matches, he wrestled three of his own teammates. That included a second-period pin of Schultz in the championship match. 

Hoyt Dantoin added a third-place finish for Rhinelander at 113 and Ostermann was third at 150.

“At the end of the day, we got a lot of mat time today, and that’s what a young team like us need,” Arneson said.

The event was a late addition to the schedule, added after the Hodags were forced to pull out of the Northern Badger Invite in River Falls last month due to multiple illnesses. Arneson said the team bonding off the mat was as important as the wrestling on it during the weekend trip.

“For the development of a team, you really need to have that team camaraderie,” he said. “Overnight trips and stays in a hotel, just letting the kids be kids where they can learn about each other’s backgrounds instead of just practice and be on a bus together, are huge in a development of a young team. 

“If the tournament got canceled and we would have (just) had the overnight trip, it would have been worth it.”

Rhinelander returns to action tonight as it travels to Phillips for a quadrangular meet. 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].