WOLFPACK WRESTLING - Tough back-to-back nights for the Pirates after blowout win in Cornell

WOLFPACK WRESTLING

All four of Cornell-Gilman-Lake Holcombe’s varsity wrestlers went .500 or better at Saturday’s 18-team Barron Invitational, led by a 157-pound championship from senior Troy Duellman.

Duellman went 4-0 to win his bracket in the Wolfpack’s first competition of the 2023-24 season. Freshman Taydyn Angell had a strong debut, taking fifth at 215 pounds, junior Preston Fredrickson went 3-1 to take ninth at 144 pounds and freshman Kadyn Jones was 2-2 while finishing 10th at 138 pounds.

As a team, the Wolfpack scored 129 points to place 16th, beating the Osseo-Fairchild Co-op (85) and Flambeau (69).

Three of Duellman’s wins came by pin. The top seed to start the day in the 157-pound bracket, the Wolfpack’s twotime state qualifier opened with a 50-second pin over Barron freshman Carter Roth. Duellman faced a solid competitor in the quarterfinals in eighth-seeded sophomore Ethan Fischer of Somerset, who went 32-19 for the Division 2 Spartans last year. Duellman outlasted him 4-0.

Duellman stuck fourth-seeded sophomore James Buckholtz of Hayward-Northwood in 1:11 in the semifinals to advance to the title match against Lakeland senior Jerome LaBarge, a third-place finisher last season in the Great Northern Conference. Duellman pinned him in 3:08.

Angell drew the ninth seed in a 13man bracket at 215 pounds. He opened by pinning eighth-seeded senior Dawson Nordquist of Turtle Lake-Clayton in 2:54 to advance to a quarterfinal match with top-seeded Bradey Gottwald of Hayward-Northwood, a Division 1 sectional qualifier last year. Angell hung with Gottwald but fell 4-0. Gottwald went on to win the weight class championship, while Angell took care of business in the fifth- through eighth-place bracket. He pinned Josh Nutt of Phillips in 2:22 and Derek Ewald of Cameron in 1:16 to finish 3-1 for the day.

Fredrickson was the fourth seed in the 144-pound bracket but lost his opener by pin 1:40 to Clear Lake’s Trevor Gilbertson. Fredrickson didn’t lose again, pinning Barron’s Wyatt Waldofski in 1:16, Amery’s Chayce Dosch in 38 seconds and Sawyer Kucaba of Phillips in 1:07 to place ninth.

Jones almost did the same at 138 pounds. Opening as the 11th seed out of 14 entrants, Jones was pinned by Osceola freshman Isaac Dunnom, who ended up in the championship match, in 4:29 in his opener. Jones rebounded by pinning Turtle Lake-Clayton’s Brayden Lytle in 36 seconds and Cameron’s Henry Dahle in 53 seconds to reach the ninth-place match. There, he was pinned by fourthseeded Unity sophomore Tanner Freer in 4:52.

Zachary Shurtz competed for the Wolfpack in the JV 132-pound bracket and went 0-5.

Hayward-Northwood won the team championship with 382 points. Clear Lake was second with 342.5 points, followed by Amery (334), Osceola (287.5) and the Luck Co-op (262).

The Wolfpack heads east to the Auburndale Invitational this Saturday. Competition is set to start at 10:30 a.m.

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