I'm Phil Ne W R C O sports, the 82nd annual W I A A state individual wrestling tournament,
the fourth girls individual wrestling tournament will be held in conjunction this weekend. Lots of
area wrestlers will be representing our area, including from Riverdale Brody Mese, Grant Matthews,
and Lakota Brewer. They'll be leaving Riverdale schools for the state tournament later today.
Richland Center will be represented by Ethan Haiti and Madeline Muller. Madeline will be
wrestling this afternoon, as girls preliminaries will be wrestled at the Cole Center. It's a different
format this year. I talked to Coach Silas Coleman of the Hornets about that. Yeah, so this year
everyone's in the guarantee two matches at the state tournament, which I think is great.
And so we're going to have that preliminary and that quarter final round on Thursday night.
We're before it was always just that preliminary round. So it'll be nice to have a couple
rounds wrestling and not make anybody kind of sit until Friday before they get the chance to compete.
I asked Silas about Ethan Hades first match. Yeah, so we're going to have to wait and see what
happens. He'll have a young man from Whitewater or young man from Shaboygan Falls.
You know, we obviously haven't seen very much of them just with the way our schedule goes and
they're going to land up at all. I'm confident. Ethan and his abilities and so I know coming in with
the fifth or the 12th seat of this first match. Either one of those is going to be tough and so I
just want him to go out and wrestle his best and I think it'll be okay.
Well, let's talk about the girls side of things. Great weekend last weekend for Madeline Muller.
Yeah, absolutely. She was one of the first girls that we were able to have out on our team
last year. Over the last few years we've had Emma Hades as well and her Maddie were kind of the first
two girls that we had and I remember asking Maddie as a freshman if she'd considered coming out
for the wrestling team and luckily she said yes and a few years of hard work and look where she's
at and so I'm really proud of her and the effort that she's put in and spending time outside of
this season for us saying as well and it's paid off big for her. What about her match up in the first
round? Will she wrestle the first match? So that first round will start at two o'clock on
Thursday. I'm sure you're wrestling Maddie Peach from melting. She's a tough wrestler but
to get to that state tournament everyone's earned their right to be there and you know if you go
out there and you you wrestle you best leave it all there you never know it's what's going to
happen. I'm confident in Maddie's ability to go out there and wrestle tough and you know we'll
see what comes of it on Thursday. There will be a send-off pep rally at Richland center high school
getting underway around nine o'clock for Ethan Haiti and Madeline Muller and the wrestling
programs. Also Ithaca Weston will have a send-off around nine thirty nine thirty five this morning at
the school as they wish the best luck to Nolan Walder and Caden Coleman both seniors I talked to
co-head coach Marcus McCauley about Nolan Walder and Caden and their improvements. Nolan when he
was a freshman I think he had two varsity win but then he put in the work over the summer to go
to different camps and you know do some offseason wrestling and qualify as a junior one-one match
but then lost his next two but he did a really good year. He lost to Craig from the
total earlier in the year, avenged that loss twice at the conference tournament and again
at Reachnoles. So he's just you know looking really well especially towards the end of the year here.
And Caden Coleman as a senior he's shown a lot of improvement this year hasn't he?
Yeah Caden's come a long ways too as um some seat of the freshman and he's really turned it on
I'd say you know some vice-state tournament that was kind of uh I want to say a lockdown tournament
for us but kind of you know we didn't have any day two qualifiers so it's like man what's the rest of
the year gonna look like and you know he's one of those guys that stepped up and was kind of
he was wrestling two-fifteen but he was kind of lighter and decided to make the drop down to 190
and you know obviously it worked out for him place in the second at the sectionals and qualifying
Mark has talked about the different schedule for state tournament. Yeah the sectional coaches
meeting they had us watch it was like 30-minute video um about the changes for this year which I
think it's good you know we're always talking about how we can improve the sport and make it more
friendly for everybody and I think it's nice to see that they're trying to make changes to help
grow the sport even more. You got a shot not just with Ithaca Western wrestlers but uh there are
quite a few that you saw out the sectional probably you've seen all year came through maybe
the scenic ridge and rivers that uh probably going to be on the podium this weekend right? Yeah yeah
and I you know I kind of look through the brackets when they come out and I watch the reveals show
and you know it's always funny because you start conference weekend and you're cheering against
these guys and the same thing at regional thing you get down the statement like you know your
sectional is kind of your team and you're pulling for all those guys down there um and I think
there will be a good amount on the podium and I think there will be a good amount of state
chance they come out of the sectional. A young man that came through your um conference um
in the Picatonic Argo wrestler Aiden Grudenfelder and I saw where he's in the wrestling 200
matches how can that be possible? Yeah um yeah I mean the limits you can only have 50 going
inter-regionals but uh it's an incredible feat uh I don't care you know what your schedule looks
like and you know grants done a good job of you know getting them into tougher tournaments so
him and uh oil asking gets from tougher matches and they still you know come on on top and I
always enjoy that and there are two very fun individuals to watch raffle. Among the highlights going
into state tournament this weekend I was Marcus McColley co-head coach of Ithaca Weston. Phenomore
sending Carson Bassett and Silas and Savich, Tristan Stelt, Nathan Blaschke and Dalton Wolf,
Dodgeville's Shane Roshan, Rhett Spurley, Nathan Johnson and Hawkins Peterson representing
the Southwest Wisconsin Conference today. North Crawford Senica with Jiren Grimsled and Sawyer
Swigham, couple of wrestlers that we have seen through the year and Iowa Grand Highlands,
Brock Hinderman, Tyson Imhoff, Jackson Bussey, Bodie Brock up and Gavin Hinderman. Good luck to
the wrestlers. Bill and the crew will have reports and play by play beginning this afternoon and
the full-fledged live coverage coming up tonight at six o'clock as well. Also from the area,
Boys Basketball tonight, Varroqua Place in Arcadia, GET at Westby and DeSoto at Castin,
Mount Horabit, Readsburg, Edgewood at Sock Prairie, Hillsboro visits North Crawford,
SWAL Action Phenomore at Southwestern, Cubicity at Boschabell,
Mineral Point at Iowa Grant, Darling Chin at Riverdale. And Boys Basketball tonight,
Prairie Dushin at Landcaster, Platteville at River Valley and Dodgeville at Richland Center.
Merchants bowling league action from last night, bubbling springs at a 30-20 series,
AutoZone 29-34, Granite Valley 29-25. Bubbling springs at 10-35,
Gerner Farms at 10-30, AutoZone at 10-24. Jeff Seckman had a 7-64 series, Chase Keller 7-39,
Wyatt Detweiler at 6-93. Top game, Jeff Seckman at 279 and a 268, Chase Keller 276 and a 267,
and Jacob Layton with a 257 in the Merchants bowling league. It is a big challenge. The
Buxel tried to bounce back from the 100 to 97 loss to Houston. They'll have to do it against one
of the best in the NBA. The Denver Nuggets are right at the top of the Western Conference,
and an argument came to me that they are the best in the league. Milwaukee might be playing
without three starters, including Yannis out to the Cumpo. He's listed as probable
with his ongoing calf strain, Pat Conneton and Liam Robbins are out for the game tonight.
Basketball last night in College Man's Action, it was Michigan State over Maryland 58-55.
And in state and the WIAC tournament, Platteville defeated Stevens Point 83-73 and lacrosse
over O'Clair 69-55. Badger head football coach Luke Fickle is adding to his staff.
Michael Sabine is signed to an assistant special teams coordinator post. Sabine comes to
Madison from Florida Atlantic, recouched edge rushers. He's also worked at Boston College,
Ohio State, and Grand Valley State as well. The Brewers lost yesterday in exhibition baseball
to the Dodgers, 9-3, and their split squad lost to Arizona by a final of 7-1.
And in the sports from Hockey, the WCHA has awarded Wisconsin Junior Kirsten Sims
and Caroline Harvey weekly honors. Those two were singled out for their performance and last
weekend sweep of Bemidji State. Sims was named forward of the week for the second time this season
and Harvey was named defender of the week for the sixth time. Sims had six points in the two wins.
The Badgers start the postseason with a best-of-three series against the same Bemidji State team
starting on Friday. I'm Phil Ne, with sports.