The Hatchet grapplers jumped both feet into a mammoth challenge in last week’s Oshkosh On The Water tournament, and ended up 13th of 59 squads with 171.5 points.
“I thought we wrestled really well the first day and got eight people through,” THS coach Bob Garrou said. “The second day our inexperience showed. Some of our kids got tired and lost close matches to kids we should have beat.
“I think we should have been top seven, so we were a little bit disappointed. But we learned a lot and we’ll work at that.”
Runner-up Austin Bellile (189) took five matches, including three pins and a major, before dropping a 1-0 final to Kewaskum’s Bo Seidel. Payton DuPlayee (215) ended up fourth after forfeiting his 3rd-place match due to injury concern. Turner Wegener (112) ranked 6th after 8 matches.
“Austin wrestled awesome,” Garrou said. “He lost 1-0 to the #1 kid in the state. Payton hyper-extended his knee so they said he shouldn’t wrestle for third and I, of course, listened. These three kids are where I want our whole team to be.”
Nate Kuehn (285) won 3 matches, and Kevin Zurfluh (103), Larry Hendzel (119), David Brostowitz (130), Colton Butler (160) and Kris Cole (171) all collected a pair of victories.
Coleman (322) took the tourney by a wide margin over Hortonville (241.5), Kewaskum (232), Eden Prairie (224.5) and Wilmot Union (223).