Ninth-ranked SPASH wrestling team aims for WVC Title
With four state qualifiers back from last season, the Stevens
Point Area Senior High School (SPASH) wrestling team will look to win the
Wisconsin Valley Conference (WVC) Title for the first time this season.
The Panthers returned eight regulars from last season’s
varsity lineup, when they finished second in the conference behind eventual
WIAA Division 1 State Semifinalist Wisconsin Rapids.
Ninth-ranked SPASH had three individual champions at the 65-team
Oshkosh Lourdes Academy On the Water Classic at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh
Tuesday and Wednesday, Dec. 29 and 30, and has off this week before it hosts
WVC leader and fifth-ranked Wisconsin
Rapids in a dual meet at
“The guys that are out there are doing everything that I’ve
asked them to,” said first-year SPASH wrestling head coach Rob King. “We’ve had
some injuries that we’ve been dealing with, but we’ve got the conference bye
this week, which is a good time for us.
“We’re wrestling extremely well right now and we’re going to
come back rested with our full lineup on the 14th against Rapids,” he said. “And
that’s going to be a fun night.”
A former state place-winner for the SPASH wrestling team,
King spent nine seasons as an assistant coach for the team before he took over
as the head coach when Duane Groshek stepped down during the off-season.
The Panthers lost state qualifier Noel Winch (37-12 at 220
pounds) from last season’s team that finished second in the WVC behind
Wisconsin Rapids, which went 6-0 in conference dual meets and won the WVC Tournament
last season to total 24 points and claim the Conference Title over SPASH (20).
This season, the Panthers are led by the return of four
state qualifiers from a year ago in junior twin brothers Dylan and Brady
Koontz, senior Fritz Schierl and sophomore Chance Bailey.
“They’re excellent leaders,” said King. “And they’re off to
a fantastic start.”
Dylan Koontz is currently the top-ranked wrestler in Division
1 at 120 pounds after he placed fifth at state at 113 last season and finished 48-6
overall, while he also finished second at the USAW junior men’s Greco-Roman
Wrestling Nationals in July.
Brady Koontz is ranked fourth in Division 1 at 113 after he placed
sixth at state at 106 and went 49-7 to set a school record for wins in a season
last year, while he also was the United States’ representative in Greco-Roman
Wrestling at the 46 kg/101.5 pound weight class for the UWW Cadet World
Championships in Bosnia-Herzegovina in August.
“Brady and Dylan are really coming to grips with the success
that they can have in folkstyle wrestling,” said King. “A lot of people say
they’re Greco wrestlers and that’s where their success is, but I came into this
year with some ideas on where they needed to improve and we’ve attacked those
areas, and they’re really hitting on all cylinders right now.
“Our top guys are beating some pretty good kids,” he said.
Schierl, a two-time state qualifier who placed fourth at
state at 138 as a sophomore and will walk-on for the NCAA Division 1 Ohio State
University wrestling team next season, is ranked second in Division 1 at 160,
while Bailey is ranked sixth in Division 1 at 132 after he finished 29-12 last
year as a freshman and advanced to state at 120.
“Fritzy’s just been lights out,” said King. “He’s in the
zone this year, and he knows he’s got some unfinished business.
“Chance started off the year with some tough losses to some
good kids,” he said. “Mentally he wasn’t in a good spot, and we fixed that, and
he’s wrestling as good as I’ve ever seen him.”
Also returning to the varsity lineup this season are junior Joey
Roth (170), who finished second in the WVC last year at 160; 10th-ranked senior
Nate Engle (195); senior Nate Duffert (132); and senior Jake Harlow (182).
Freshmen Xavier Klein (106), Emmy Engle (120) and Dylan
Trigg (138) and juniors Logan Reed (145), David Lummis (152), Brandon Patoka
(220) and Jacob Erdman (285) all moved into the varsity lineup this season,
while freshman Jacob Feltz (132), sophomore Tanner Kluck (138 and 145), sophomore
Alex Trelka (145) and sophomore Nick Wachowiak (170) have also seen varsity
action for the Panthers, who have battled injuries throughout the season.
“Those are the guys that we need, moving forward,” said
King. “The next goal on our list is to win a Conference Championship, and you
can’t win a Conference Championship with four or five studs, you need a
complete, 14-man roster.
“Our sport is unlike a lot of other sports, where if you’ve
got a dominating pitcher in baseball and softball, they very well could carry
you to a championship,” he said. “In wrestling, every one of the 14 guys carries
their own weight, much like cross country, where you’re as good as your fifth,
sixth, seventh and eighth runners. We need those guys to take that next step.”
SPASH opened its WVC schedule with a 61-15 win over Wausau
East Dec. 3, before it lost to Wausau West 43-30 Dec. 10. The Panthers bounced
back with a 36-31 win over Marshfield
Dec. 17 to improve to 2-1 in the conference behind Rapids (3-0).
“We’ve got the one loss to West already this year when we
had a pretty short lineup, but we can still win the conference despite that
loss,” said King. “And that’s what our plan is.”
SPASH was in Oshkosh
last week for the 65-team On the Water Classic, where Brady Koontz dropped a
weight class from 113 to 106, Dylan Koontz dropped from 120 to 113 and Bailey
moved down from 132 to 126.
The Panthers ended up with three individual champions, as
Brady Koontz (17-1) beat second-ranked Zack Szohr of Germantown (22-1) 5-4 in
the finals, Dylan Koontz (18-0) beat seventh-ranked Zachary Beck of Ripon (15-4)
7-0 in the finals and Schierl (18-0) won by medical forfeit over Jose Acosta of
Manitowoc Lincoln (5-1) in the finals.
Meanwhile, Roth (11-2) placed second at 170 after he fell to
second-ranked Jared Krattiger of Waterford (18-0) by an 11-0 major decision in
the finals, and Bailey (14-6) placed third at 126, as SPASH totaled 251.5
points to take third in the team standings behind sixth-ranked Hortonville
(348) and Division 3 second-ranked Coleman (301.5)
“We only wrestled with 12 out of 14 weight classes that
tournament, so we knew it was going to be an uphill battle, as far as trying to
win the Team Title,” said King. “But our individual performances were
outstanding.
“We had four in the finals, which was more than any other
team,” he said. “And we had three champs, which was more than any other team.”
After having this week off, the Panthers will be home
Thursday, Jan. 14, for the dual meet against Wisconsin Rapids, which has won 42
Conference Titles in the last 59 years, back to 1957.
“If you want to win this conference, you’ve got to be a
state powerhouse,” said King, as a WVC team has won the Division 1 Team State
Title 20 times in the 24 years since the WIAA changed to a dual meet format to crown
the State Champion. “The Conference Champion is almost always down at the
(Team) State Tournament.
“Wisconsin Rapids
had their run for a long time, and Merrill before that, Everest before that and
West had it for a bit,” he said. “We’re hoping it’s Stevens Point’s turn on the top.”
The Panthers will host the SPASH Invitational at
travel to Merrill Jan. 21 and the De Pere Invitational Jan. 23, before they
host D.C. Everest in the regular season finale Jan. 28.
That will lead into the WVC Tournament at Merrill Feb. 6,
where SPASH will look for its first WVC Team Title in wrestling, with Regionals
and Sectionals the following two weeks.
King said there’s no reason to think that his team can’t win
all three of its remaining conference dual meets and head into the WVC
Tournament with a chance to win it, while the Panthers will also look to send
as many wrestlers to the Individual State Tournament as well later this season.
“The individual goals can speak for themselves: we’ve got
guys that want to get back to the State Championships down in Madison and win
it,” said King. “Stevens Point hasn’t had a State Champion in 17 years (Nate
Roth at 171 pounds in 1999), and that’s going to change this year, because
we’ve got guys in here that are focused, they know what it takes and they’ve
been close, and I think it hurts when you get that close and someone else is
walking away with your prize.
“As far as the team, we’re looking to win the Conference,
win the Regional and head off to the Team Sectional, which looks like
(second-ranked) Hudson
is the team to beat on the other side,” he said. “It’d take a valiant effort
there, but that’s the road that we’re looking at.
“The guys are working hard, and we know what’s out there,”
he said. “We’re watching the tape, we’re doing the right things in practice,
focusing on the little details, and we just need to get on the mat and see what
happens.”
