Eagles’ wrestlers 10th at conference

DEFOREST — This time, it was low scoring. But the outcome was the same: a loss. Sauk Prairie sophomore Max Schroeder fell to Reedsburg’s Braiden Hale-Toomey for the second time this year at Saturday’s Badger Conference boys wrestling tournament, suffering a 2-0 defeat in the finals at 106 pounds. The silver lining, though, is that Schroeder is likely to get a third chance at next weekend’s WIAA Division 1 regional tournament. And maybe even a fourth chance the weekend after that at sectionals. Schroeder is a Badger Conference runner-up, nothing to sneeze at. But this latest loss — only his fourth of the year, with one of the others an 11-9 loss to Hale-Toomey during the dual meet season — stings. It will motivate him now as the page turns to the postseason. “It sure will,” he said. “All losses, you learn something from them. So yeah.” Schroeder and Hale-Toomey grappled to a scoreless tie after two periods in Saturday’s finals at DeForest High School before Hale-Toomey’s reversal with 1 minute, 25 seconds left in the third made it 2-0. And that was all he needed. Schroeder was unable to escape or get a reversal of his own the rest of the way. But that wasn’t the only reason Schroeder felt like he came up short. “It starts in the neutral position,” he said. “I needed to move more, get on my feet, get on my offense. I’ve done that pretty good throughout the whole season and I just slowed down too much there in the finals. “And on the bottom it’s just a matter of getting up and standing. Easier said than done, but I just need to work on standing up and getting a good base.” Schroeder had little trouble advancing to the finals, with a first-round bye followed by first period pins — in a combined 1:12 — in the quarterfinals and semifinals. “He was dialed in. He was laser-focused,” Sauk Prairie coach Matt Gaffney said. “He’s just got to keep working and keep training. One percent better every day.” Schroeder’s effort spearheaded a 10th-place showing for the Eagles with 96.5 points. Rival Reedsburg claimed the championship with 237 points, well clear of runner-up Monona Grove/McFarland (192). Five others for Sauk Prairie also finished as medalists, led by senior Logan McIntyre, who advanced to the third-place match with a narrow 5-4 victory over Fort Atkinson’s Cooper Recob before being pinned by Beaver Dam’s Mason Grow and ending up in fourth. “He’s a senior, he’s a captain. He had a great day,” Gaffney said. “This is Logan’s highest place in the Badger Conference for his career. I couldn’t be more proud of Logan today.” Rounding out Sauk Prairie’s medalists were junior Conway Knox (fifth at 150 pounds), junior Lane Albers (fifth at 190), freshman Matthew Tesch (sixth at 113) and junior Mitch Ziegler (sixth at 132). Knox, in particular, really made a statement. “He was probably the standout kid of the day,” Gaffney said. “His record now is 12-16, so to take fifth place with a below-.500 record ... “I could just see it in his eyes today that he was dialed in. He went down a weight class for this tournament, and you could just see it in his eyes. It’s really fun as a coach to see that transition. He was wrestling 157 all year and kind of taking his lickings, but now he’s down a weight class. He’s just all smiles.” Albers had a tough draw, but held his own, fighting his way to the fifth-place match then ending with an exclamation mark — pinning Monona Grove/McFarland’s Luke Rux (29-6) to improve to 29-10. “In my opinion, 190 was probably the toughest bracket here,” Gaffney said. “So to come out with fifth — that was about what he was seeded — is good. Lane battled hard all day, and it was nice to end on a pin.” Gaffney said Ziegler and his brother, Marty, both “farm boys,” are “two of the mentally tougher kids on the team”, so he wasn’t surprised at Mitch’s finish. Marty’s day came to a premature end with a hard-fought 8-5 loss to Watertown’s Aiden Billyard in the consolations at 157 pounds. For Tesch, Saturday marked just another day in what has been a roller-coaster rookie year. “He only weighed in at 106 or 107 today and he’s wrestling 113,” said Gaffney, who graduated from Sauk Prairie High School with Tesch’s mother. “Some of these kids are weighing 115 right now and probably cutting from 126. “So for Matt to go out there and battle and make that award stand was super good. As a freshman you take your lickings, but he’ll come back and hopefully use that momentum next week.:   GOOD DAY FOR GIRLS With only three girls in the line-up, the ceiling was low for Sauk Prairie’s girls team in terms of how many points they could score. But the Eagles made the most of what they had, with two champions and a third-place finisher to finish sixth (63.5 points) among the 13 teams. “Couldn’t be more proud of them,” Gaffney said. “They all put in a lot of time, work real hard. They practice right with the boys, they never complain and they work super hard. And two out of the three were in our varsity line-up wrestling boys throughout the year. “For them to keep battling and battling and battling — we knew coming into today that they would shine. And they definitely did.” Sophomore Margaret Barrett won the title at 107 pounds while freshman Naomi Bermudo took first at 114. Freshman Lilly Hatfield took third at 185, although her finish may have been the most noteworthy from the standpoint she had to beat a girl she lost to earlier in the day in order to do so. Hatfield was pinned by Watertown junior Summer Jessup in 5:14 in the first round, sending Hatfield into the consolations. But after Jessup lost in the semifinals, the two eventually met again for third place, and this time Hatfield got the pin in 4:45, gaining revenge and a better medal. “Every match is new,” Hatfield said. “There were more stakes. You can’t just give up. I want to come out here next year and get first.” Barrett’s title — she pinned Milton junior Clara Jauch in 2:56 in the finals — also counted as an upset. Only she didn’t know it at the time. “I didn’t figure out until afterwards that the girl I beat was ranked fourth in the state. I get in my head a lot if I know their ranking,” said Barrett, who competed in the boys varsity line-up this year in a platoon role with Tesch. “The coaches always say, ‘Don’t look at the ranking, it’s a nameless, faceless opponent.’ And that helped.” Bermudo, the full-time starter in the boys line-up at 120 in the regular season, almost missed out on the finals. She was nearly pinned in the semifinals against Fort Atkinson’s Mia Bilau, but stiff-armed Bilau’s near fall and rallied to win by technical fall, 22-7, with 10 seconds to go in the match. She then pinned Beaver Dam’s Kylin Reynolds in 4:55 in the finals to claim the title. “I started to protect my legs more, didn’t let her get the shot in, and I took more shots,” Bermudo said of how she turned the tide in the semifinals. And the key in the finals? “Keeping my head and not being intimidated,” she said. “This is my first high school year, and it’s been rough. This gives me the confidence I need.”