The Southern Door Wrestling 2019-2020 season has begun. This years' teams consists of Freshman Alec Guilette, Jonas Jandrin, Cody Nellis, Jacob Zettle, Christian Counard, Reese Vanryzin and Ethan Rouer. Sophomores Austin Farley, Dylan Wessel, Thomas Grosbeier, Shaun Tooley, Josh Ditello, Riley Phillips and Brodie Overbeck. Juniors Austin Falish, Griffin Slezewski, Kyle Conard, Katelyn LeCloux, Brad Skippon, Brady Tooley, Drew DeFere and Grant Englebert. Our only returning senior is Blake Jensen, who wrestled part of last season, and is joined by first year senior Ben Slezewski and exchange student Corentin Valette.
We are a young team again this year but with some valuable experience. We have two returning state place winners with Grant Englebert (5th last year) and Griffin Slezewski 6th in 2018. We also have two returning sectional qualifiers in Austin Falish and Kyle Conard. Because we have been young the past couple years our Juniors and Sophomores have a lot of varsity time. I expect the freshman are also going to make an impact this season.
Saturday we wrestled at the Schoenherr Duals in Stratford. For several wrestlers this was their first high school competition and for some the first time ever wrestling. No better way to let you know just how you stand than by wrestling a perennial power like Stratford (State runner up last year). Like most seasons our new comers, and the team as a whole, will take some losses early in the season as we gain experience. That said, I feel all of our returning wrestlers showed improvement from last season which was good to see. We ended the day 2-3 as a team. Not bad considering we were missing 10 wrestlers for various reasons. We also moved wrestlers in an out of the line up to get as many close matches as possible. As coaches we were able to see some of the techniques we've been working on pay off and some areas we need to re-emphasize. We were also able to see the heart and determination this group has.
SD dual scores were as follows:
SD 36 Watoma Wild Rose 24
SD 28 Barron 51
SD 42 Crandon 30
SD 6 Stratford 58
SD 36 Phillips 39
Top individual finishers were Kyle Conard and Brodie Overbeck both placing second.
Team results were as follows:
Stratford 5-0
Phillips 4-1
Barron 3-2
SD 2-3
Wautoma Wild Rose 1-4
Crandon 0-5
Next Saturday the Varsity heads to Bayport for the "Battle on the Bay" and JV head to Luxemburg. Bayport is another measuring stick as it is one of the toughest tournaments in the state. Luxemburg is a tough JV tournament that can provide the mat time needed to develop skills. Already looking forward to both tournaments.
Click here to read about the other area wrestling action from the weekend
