Three emerge as medalists during the Bi-State grind

Three of Medford’s top wrestlers earned high placements while several others were close to reaching placement status during the three-day Bi-State Classic held Dec. 28-30 at the La Crosse Center.

Gage Losiewicz and Logan Kawa reached the semifinals in the 157- and 175-pound weight classes before settling for third and fourth places. Avery Losiewicz pinned her way to the 126-pound championship match in girls competition during the first two days of the tournament where she fell to Marshfield’s Erika Sleznikow in a battle between outstanding freshmen wrestlers.

Overall, Medford scored 110 points to place eighth in Division 2 of the boys tournament. The Raiders 25th overall out of 72 teams represented in the tournament, which is hosted annually by Holmen’s wrestling program. Luxemburg-Casco (247) was the Division 2 champion, outscoring Zumbrota-Mazeppa, Minn. (205), Prairie du Chien (153.5), Lodi (151), Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau/Melrose-Mindoro (146), Amery (144) and Evansville (114.5). Hastings, Minn. won the Division 1 title with 205 points, getting by Marshfield (191), Holmen (176), Hudson (174.5) and Bay Port (170). Chatfield, Minn. won the Division 3 and overall title with 291.5 points, just ahead of La Crosse Aquinas (270) and Iowa-Grant/Highland (254.5).

“Eighth is not that bad,” Medford head coach Brandon Marcis said. “Obviously I would’ve liked to do a little better, but you have to keep it in perspective with missing some guys and just the quality of competition that’s there. We definitely dropped a couple matches that we shouldn’t have. But that happens in every tournament. You have 14 guys. To get them all firing on all cylinders and have a great tournament, it’s rare. You aim to peak the guys at the right time. We’re still aiming to peak at the end of the season. I still think we’re in a really good spot. Once we get our lineup all pieced together and everybody is healthy I still think we’re pretty deadly on the mat.”

The top three

Avery Losiewicz had a big first day on Thursday, collecting three pins to reach Friday’s championship bout. The fifth seed out of 26 wrestlers at 126 pounds, Losiewicz pinned Holmen’s Peyton Kratochvill in 33 seconds, and stuck Wrightstown’s 24-3 and fourth-seeded Chesney Bartoszek in the quarterfinals. She took care of eighth-seeded Alyvia Bahl of Lancaster (10-5) with a pin in 1:03 in the semifinals. Bahl had pinned top-seeded Chloe Berg of Chatfield in 5:41 in the quarterfinals.

Sleznikow (16-0) was the third seed in the bracket and pinned her way to Friday’s final. There, she pinned Losiewicz (17-2) in 2:39.

“Avery wrestled really well and had a great tournament,” Marcis said. “Even in her finals match, she got pinned and it looked like she got beat up pretty good, but really she didn’t. It was really one little tweak for her. She got caught several times in kind of the same thing. I honestly think that technically Avery is still superior. She just got caught a few times and got in a tight spot and that was just kind of how the match shook out.”

It’s possible Losiewicz and Sleznikow could see each other again Saturday in the girls portion of the Cadott Invitational.

Medford’s other girls entrant, Bridget Wesle, went 0-2 at 132 pounds, getting pinned in 18 seconds by Brillion’s Sophia Galoff and in 1:29 by Holmen’s Madeline Eggerichs.

Medford scored 28 points to tie for 29th out of 57 girls teams. Holmen won with 143 points, outscoring South St. Paul, Minn. (114.5) and Lake Geneva Badger (100.5).

“Bridget did some good things too,” Marcis said. “Bridget is getting better every day. She just has to get used to the big environment and just keep working on the little things.”

Gage Losiewicz continued to impress in his junior season, improving to 24-3 with a 6-1 weekend.

Seeded fifth out of 56 wrestlers in the weight class, Losiewicz got Medford’s quickest pin of the season so far in seven seconds over Frazier Assefa of Bloomington Kennedy, Minn., pinned Lancaster’s Logan Wolf in 5:41, beat Verona’s 21-5 Bryson Kundinger 6-1 and took a 4-2 quarterfinal decision over Kiel’s 21-4 Eyan Dessellier.

Losiewicz ran into the top seed, University of Minnesota commit Charlie Millard (22-0) of Mequon Homestead in Saturday morning’s semifinals and was pinned in 3:35. But Losiewicz finished with a 10-0 major decision over Chatfield’s Ben Carrier (12-6) and an 8-1 win over Kaleb Lochner of Zumbrota-Mazeppa (18-2) in the third-place bout.

“Gage had a great tournament,” Marcis said. “Those last two matches was what I was most impressed with. After he lost in the semis, he came back and beat two really good kids from Minnesota. And he didn’t just beat them, he came close to majoring both. Those last two matches for Gage were like state championship level matches. If he keeps wrestling like that, he could be at the top of the podium. He wrestled free. He didn’t seem to have any worries. Mentally I think he was in a good spot and his flow in the matches was just great. Some of the best matches I’ve ever seen Gage wrestle.”

Kawa (20-7) also won his first four matches to get to the 175-pound semifinals.

He needed just 37 seconds to pin Jonah Bunke of the Lewiston-Altura, Minn. Co-op, pinned Richland Center’s Mason Jelinek in 1:38, earned a 6-2 win over Zumbrota-Mazeppa’s Wilson Nordquist and defeated 20-3 Espyn Sweers of Mauston-Necedah in the quarterfinals.

Top-seeded David Malin of Aquinas (16-1) beat the fourth-seeded Kawa 13-5 in the semifinals and went on to win the championship. Malin won the Division 3 170-pound state championship last March. Kawa rebounded with a 4-2 win over Homestead’s Guy Fraley (24-7) in the consolation semifinals but fell 3-1 to Stratford’s 28-1 Carter Lueck, the third seed, in the third-place match.

“Kawa wrestled a good tournament,” Marcis said. “He did lose to the D3 state champion in the semis. He came back, won a nice match in the consolation semis. A focus for him is just finishing strong in practice, at tournaments, whatever he does, and when that last part comes, he’s gotta be kicking up the gas and hitting on all cylinders.”

The rest of the Raiders

Jude Stark, Cory Lindahl and Paxton Rothmeier just missed getting into the placement matches in their weight classes.

Lindahl (18-7) won his first two matches at 150 pounds, including a 9-6 decision over River Valley’s Wyatt Nachreiner, before running into eventual champion Danny Heiser of Evansville, who beat him in a 16-1 technical fall. Lindahl beat AJ Alesch of Holmen 7-1. Needing a win to get into the 11th-place match, Lindahl was pinned in 2:19 by Laiken Copeman of Zumbrota-Mazeppa.

At 165 pounds, Rothmeier (13-5) was knocked to the consolation bracket with a loss by pin to Stoughton’s 22-5 Ethan Soderbloom. Rothmeier went on a run, pinning New Richmond’s Adam Wilhelm in 3:33, earning an 11-2 major de- cision over Lucas Freeberg of Cannon Falls-Randolph, Minn. and pinning De Soto’s Seth Greeno in 5:00. But a 4-1 loss to Landon Busch (20-8) of the Cuba City Co-op kept Rothmeier from at least wrestling for 11th.

Stark (18-7) started with a 7-0 win over Jacob Bertling of the Nekoosa Co-op and then lost a close 5-3 decision to 22-3 Avery Femrite of Beaver Dam. In the consolation bracket, Stark won a tight 1-0 match with G-E-T’s Jayce Stetzer and beat Dodgeville’s Nathan Johnson but his run ended with a 4-3 loss to Monroe’s 19-4 Carson Menehan.

“There was a certain point where, across the board, we kind of met the tough seeds and had a rough round right in the middle in the second, third rounds,” Marcis said. “But coming back, I thought we did very well and wrestled through the grind well.”

Owen Higgins (13-5) filled the 138-pound spot and went 2-2 with a pin in 3:24 over Ithaca-Weston’s Derek Franzen and a 44-second pin over Nicholas Wanner- Holinka of La Crosse Logan-Central. A wild 15-13 loss in the sudden-victory portion of overtime to Sorin Osadcii of Homestead eliminated Higgins.

Braxton Weissmiller (14-10) went 2-2 at 215 pounds, pinning Chris Clark of the Kickapoo Co-op in 1:58 and earning a 9-1 major decision over Mineral Point’s Mac Busser. He lost a 3-1 overtime match to 20-8 Ezra Waege of Luxemburg-Casco and was eliminated with a 5-1 loss to Levi Maier of Mount Horeb-Barneveld.

“A lot of these guys are right there,” Marcis said. “They’re right on the line of being state contenders or not going to state. They’re kind of hovering over that line. How we approach everything in the next month is going to be the decider for those guys.”

At 190 pounds, Evan Wilkins had the tough task of wrestling a little bit undersized in this high-caliber tournament. He went 0-2 losing by pin in 1:36 to Miles Olson of West Salem-Bangor and in 2:31 to Blake Goyette of Holmen.

“In Evan’s second match, he was right there in the match,” Marcis said. “Then he was in on a shot and as soon as he quit moving his feet, the weight advantage was evident and the kid kind of got him. Across the team, we just have to make sure we’re wrestling all positions all of the time. When you get in high level matches it just seems like the guy who stops wrestling and takes that little break gets scored on.”

The tournament was a good learning experience for Medford’s younger wrestlers.

Caden Olson picked up a couple of wins at 106 pounds, pinning Landon Johnson of Beaver Dam in 3:27 and Isaiah Holtz of Oconto Falls in 4:02. Jordan Lavin was pinned at 120 pounds by Carson Neubert of Luxemburg-Casco and Colin Cournoyer of Stratford.

“Caden Olson just has to outgrow some of those youth wrestling habits and I see him making big jumps,” Marcis said. “There are just a couple little technical things that you have to be more disciplined on in high school than you do when you’re wrestling in youth. That’s always a learning curve for all of the freshmen. Jordy Lavin too. He’s a really good wrestler. He’s just kind of getting caught in some things by making some of those youth wrestling mistakes I call them.”

Broden Schilling gave up some pounds while bumping up to 126 pounds and went 0-2. Nick Malchow lost both of his contested matches at 113 pounds, including a 7-5 decision to Jay Ryan of Goodhue, Minn.

Medford’s Max Dietzman (285 pounds) and Parker Lissner (138 pounds) were unavailable to wrestle.

Busy weekend

As mentioned earlier, Medford’s upcoming weekend of wrestling includes girls competition at the Cadott Invitational, which starts at 10:30 a.m. Saturday.

The Raiders’ full squad is at the Shiocton Duals on Friday. The eight-team tournament starts with two, four-team pools. Medford will face Reedsville, Stevens Point and Shawano in its pool before crossing over to face either Shiocton, Menasha, Kiel or Winneconne from the other side.

Competition starts at 4:30 p.m. “I’m really looking forward to Shiocton because it’s a dual tournament,” Marcis said. “It’s the only one we have this year. That’s fun for the kids because you’re really wrestling for the team and you can see that difference in a dual-meet format.”

Medford has a Great Northern Conference dual meet Jan. 11 at Mosinee.