Team review: RHS wrestling

The Rhinelander High School wrestling team is still looking to recapture the success it had back in the mid 2010s. 

It’s been a slow process for third-year head coach Scottie Arneson, but the Hodags found ways to be more competitive this season.

Rhinelander ended up tied for fifth in the conference this year, securing its first conference dual meet win since 2022. Overall, it was part of an improved season that saw the team go 5-9 in dual meets overall and send five wrestlers to the sectional round of the WIAA tournament.

“That’s an improvement from last year having one boy and two girls wrestling,” Arneson said. “We’re growing and, hopefully, in the near future, we have even more than that.”

Here are five storylines from the recently completed season.

Picking up wins

The Hodags went winless overall in dual meets in the 2022-23 season but got their way back in the win column with a 36-30 victory at Amherst as part of a triangular Dec. 15. Availability was key that night as Hoyt Dantoin got a forfeit victory at 113 pounds in the penultimate weight class of the dual to break a 30-all tie. The Hodags won when neither team trotted out a 120-pounder for the final match.

Rhinelander picked up its second win Jan. 11 in conference competition, edging Antigo 42-36. The Hodags trailed by six with two bouts remaining, but Logan Schwinger got a pin at 190 pounds to tie it and senior Owen Kurtz finished things off with a pin at 215 to give Rhinelander its first conference victory since beating 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,” Arneson said afterward.

Overall, it was part of a more competitive season for the Hodags, who lost two duals in conference play by fewer than 10 points. Rhinelander picked up three more wins in non-conference play, grabbing two wins in a quadrangular at Phillips Jan. 16 and another over Florence Jan. 23.

Individual GNC champs

Though the Hodags finished last in the GNC tournament, they had some strong individual results, led by three conference champions in the heavyweights. 

Schwinger claimed the title at 190 pounds, Kurtz was the champ at 215 and Reid Schultz took the title at 285. 

“I think the championships show the kids who really care right now about being successful and giving it their all every day at practice and giving it their all every day on the mat,” Arneson said afterward. 

In addition to the conference champions, senior Robert Schramke received honorable mention in the conference with a third-place finish at 132 pounds and Kurtz was named GNC co-wrestler of the year after winning a conference title for a third straight season.

Postseason

    In this Feb. 17, 2024 file photo, Rhinelander’s Owen Kurtz battles Hayward’s Bradey Gottwald in a third-place match at 215 pounds in a WIAA Division 2 sectional meet in Tomahawk. Kurtz went 44-3 on the season and won the GNC championship at 215 pounds, but missed qualifying for the state tournament by one position. (Bob Mainhardt/River News)
  

Kurtz had only one loss during the regular season and appeared to be in position to finally make a run at a WIAA state tournament berth that had eluded him during his high school career. He lost division 1 sectional championship matches in 2022 and 2023, and then fell in wrestle backs for the second and final state qualifying spot both years.

There seemed to be a window of opportunity with the Hodags dropping to D2 and the top three finishers out of the Tomahawk sectional advancing to the Kohl Center in Madison, but the sectional script was all too familiar for Kurtz.

He had a chance to clinch a spot at state with a semifinal victory, but was pinned by Rice Lake’s Easton Stone. He earned a wrestle back for third but ran out of gas against Hayward’s Bradey Gottwald, was pinned in the third period and stopped one place short of state one final time.

“It’s really tough,” Kurtz said afterward. “Four years of so close and not being able to punch it in, doing good in the regular season and not being able to finish it out the way I want to is disappointing, but you live and you learn. Bigger and better stuff is coming in the future.”

While the Hodags got three wrestlers through to the boys’ part of the sectional — Schwinger and junior Aiden Ostermann being the others — it was overall a disappointing postseason for the team. Rhinelander figured it had another legitimate state tournament hopeful in Schultz, who was 16-4 entering the postseason, but Schultz never got a chance to compete after sustaining a knee injury in practice just days before the regional tournament.

“I don’t want to say that he would have qualified (for state), but I think we would have had another regional champion, just the way that he wrestles free and the explosiveness that he has,” Arneson said. “Injuries suck but, at the end of the day, we hopefully get another year out of Reid and he’ll come back better than ever.”

Girls’ squad

Rhinelander was shut out of the girls’ state wrestling tournament for the first time in its three-year history after graduating two-time placewinner Abby Swanson. The Hodags had three wrestlers on the girls’ side this year, though only two of them competed at sectionals, with sophomore Mya Swanson (14-11) and freshman Taylor Dahlquist (0-6), both suffering first-round defeats.

“We’re kind of looking forward to next season, getting another shot,” Hodag girls’ coach Eric Gobin said. “Overall, it was kind of tough with the girls have to win to get out of the section. Just looking for ways to improve for next year.” 

What’s next

The Hodags will graduate a handful of seniors, with Kurtz being the biggest loss both on and off the mat.

The Hodags should be strong again in the upper weights with Schwinger and Schultz leading the way. From there, it will be a matter of how the underclassmen in the lower weights progress and how much depth the team can build in the offseason.

Arneson said he hopes the taste of sectionals a number of wrestlers got as participants or spectators this winter will motivate his squad moving forward.

“It’s a great experience for those juniors and, hopefully, the freshmen and sophomores to follow,” he said. “I think kids are eager and they want to be in this sectional setting next year, which is going to fuel the fire for the offseason.” 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].