on paper, came at 182 ….

on paper, came at 182 pounds in a battle between seniors Bowe and Connor Lund. Bowe took charge with two first-period takedowns for a 4-1 lead, then he rode Lund and pinned him at 2:42 in the second to give Medford a 39-6 lead.

Another of Rhinelander’s top guns, Ben Sinclair, pinned Krug in 1:42 at 195 pounds, but that was answered by Rau, who pinned rival Trevor Knapp in 1:43. Medford forfeited the 285-pound match to Conner Jensen, then 106-pounder Thaddeus Sigmund quickly got Tanner Schmidt’s shoulders to the mat and pinned him in 1:29 for a 51-18 lead.

“Knapp is a good kid,” Marcis said. “Jake Rau did good, got in a shot, worked his stuff right away and that was it. The win for Thaddeus was a big match. He’s just so little. He’s giving up 12 pounds to every kid he wrestles. But he’s got that Sigmund strength and he’s using it to his advantage. I don’t know if it’s an advantage when you’re 12-15 pounds light in the weight class, but it definitely equalizes the match a little bit. We’re proud of him for doing that.”

The Hodags closed out the meet by getting a pin in 50 seconds from Tim Fox in his 113-pound match with Ty Sova and a pin in 1:42 from Hugh Wiese in his 120-pound match with Blake Schilling.

“We’re always hungry for more,” Marcis said. “We want a total team effort. We only lost four or five matches, but every loss was a pin so we can’t have that. If we want to achieve our goals we can’t give up pins. We can lose, but we can’t give up pins.”

Medford went 4-1 in JV matches. Matthew Gebert, Wyatt Johnson and Zack Mottle all earned pins. Oscar Hinderliter split his matches, getting an 8-6 win and losing by pin.