RHS girls wrestlers compete in Shiocton

The Rhinelander High School girls’ wrestling Hodags jumped back into action Saturday, Jan. 3 in the Clausen Girls’ Classic at Shiocton. Rhinelander, with just four wrestlers in the lineup, finished 20th in the 29-team field.

“This is definitely one of the tougher tournaments we’ve been to on the year,” coach Caleb Radtke said. “I remember booking this (tournament), this previous summer, and just being excited about it. Just some new teams that we don’t usually see, and some very tough teams out of the Fox Valley, Green Bay area.”

Junior Cassidy Lindner suffered just her second loss of the season as she dropped to 120 pounds for the meet and fell in the semifinals by pin to eventual weight-class champion Debra Kuss of Mishicot. Lindner (19-2) won her other four matches on the day, including a win over Marshfield’s Logan Boon with a second-period pin in the third-place match. 

“She lost to a girl out of Mishicot who is very, very tough. I think after watching her, she’s a lot better than I had anticipated, obviously gave Cassidy a very, very good match,” Radtke said. “But other than that match, Cassidy looked very, very good on the day. She beat a state qualifier from last year in round one. The girl had like a 41-15 record, and Cassidy beat the brakes off of her. Then Cassidy in the third place match wrestled, a Marshfield girl, who was very, very solid, and handedly beat her.”

Freshman Katie Hazelton went 2-3 on the day to take eighth in a competitive bracket at 126 pounds. She recorded pins over Peshtigo’s Riley Hubert and Manitowoc Lutheran’s Myla Kopecky in the preliminary rounds to earn a spot in the top eight before dropping her final three matches of the day. 

“Katie had a really good day,” Radtke said. “She beat a girl (Kopecky) that she was not supposed to. She was down by five or six points and ended up rolling the girl to her back and catching her and pinning her. So that was a really, really good day for Katie. She’s definitely developing and growing quite a bit as the season is progressing. So it’s exciting to see, especially out of a freshman.”

Skylar Leitl won two matches on Saturday, taking seventh at 152 pounds while Miranda Daab went 0-5 and finished eighth at 235. 

“Skylar, it was a pretty solid day for her. I know she was really excited about getting those wins,” Radtke said. “I think she’s starting to open up a bit and she’s starting to figure out the sport of wrestling. It was a tough day for Miranda. I think we just kind of keep at it with her and eventually, and hopefully it clicks. She did a lot of good things, just didn’t fall the right way today.”

Challenge match postponed

Rhinelander was supposed to take part in the second Great Northern/Wisconsin Valley conference challenge night Tuesday at D.C. Everest, but the event was postponed due to poor road conditions in the central part of the state. A make-up date for the event had not been announced as of press time. 

It was to have been the second of three challenge nights for the GNC and WVC ahead of their first conference tournament Feb. 6 in Medford. The third of those nights is set for Tuesday, Jan. 20 at Tomahawk.

The Hodag boys were back in action Thursday night, facing Tomahawk in a GNC dual at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium that concluded after press time for today’s edition. Visit RiverNewsOnline.com for a recap of that match and look for a full report in the Tuesday, Jan. 13 edition of the River News.

Both the Hodag boys’ and girls’ teams will be in action Saturday at the Bluejay Challenge in Merrill.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].