Duellman 2nd, Person 5th at 152 pounds in season-opening tourney

WOLFPACK WRESTLING

Troy Duellman and Braeden Person each went 4-1 in the 152-pound weight class to lead the Cornell-Gilman-Lake Holcombe Wolfpack wrestling squad at Saturday’s Barron Invitational, the team’s first competition of the new season.

Duellman placed second in the weight class, earning four straight wins before coming out on the short end of an exciting championship match with Clear Lake’s Tyler Sunday.

Both wrestlers are coming off state tournament appearances from a year ago. Sunday won the first meeting between the two this year in overtime, taking an 8-6 sudden victory. Sunday improved his early-season record to 9-0 with the win.

Duellman got to the championship pool by earning two quick victories to start the tournament. He pinned Hayward freshman Jeremiah Kuehlman in 1:11 and Shell Lake sophomore Joe Harrington in 1:01 in the preliminary rounds.

In the four-man championship roundrobin, Duellman pinned Somerset’s Connor Grahovac in 3:36 and took a medical forfeit over Ashland’s Jackson Fiamoncinni to set up the championship match with Sunday.

Person also ran into Sunday, but his matchup with Sunday came in the preliminary rounds. Person started his day with a pin in 1:06 over Somerset’s Carter Bighley. He nearly went the distance with Sunday but eventually got pinned in 5:07.

That sent Person to the fifth- through eighth-place bracket. He swept through that, pinning Unity’s David Whitlock in 2:48, beating Flambeau’s Dakota Nelson 8-1 and pinning Harrington in 2:00 to take fifth in the weight class.

Sophomore Preston Fredrickson finished sixth in a 12-man bracket at 138 pounds.

In his preliminary pool, Fredrickson pinned Ashland’s Justin Defoe in 5:40 but was pinned by Hayward’s Noah Christinson in 3:27. The 1-1 record put Fredrickson in the eight-man championship bracket, where he was pinned by top seed Tyson Skubal of Lakeland in 1:44, pinned the Luck Co-op’s Joe Wiltrout in 1:35 in the consolation semifinal and was pinned in 3:11 by Turtle Lake’s Mason Quade in the fifth-place bout.

Freshman Anthony Schofield picked up his first varsity wins while placing seventh in the 220-pound competition. That bracket had four round-robin matches, followed by a final placement match.

In the round-robin, Schofield was pinned by Amery’s Koy Hopke, Barron’s Wyatt Weise and Unity’s Alex Holden while pinning Luck’s Jesse Wilson in 20 seconds. Schofield won the seventh-place match by forfeit over Flambeau’s Tyler Eckhart.

The Wolfpack finished 13th in the team standings with 22 points. They were not able to count Person’s points since he was in the same bracket as Duellman. Amery won the 14-team meet with 137 points, Hayward was second with 112, followed by Lakeland (109), Clear Lake (108), Somerset (76), Unity (74), the Luck Co-op (68) and Osceola (68).

Cornell-Gilman-Lake Holcombe is scheduled to attend a double-dual with Shell Lake at Clear Lake tonight, Thursday. The team is at the Auburndale Invitational on Saturday and the Abbotsford- Colby Quad on Dec. 22.