Gators Steal a Victory Over Pirates

By: Ryan Bergeron

            The Gators were looking to stay perfect on the season as they came to the mat for their second consecutive home dual against the Crookston Pirates. Many matches with Crookston have been very entertaining and have been decided late, but the Gators wrestled hard on Friday, January 6 to run away from the Pirates early in route to an impressive 46-17 victory.

            Coach Bergeron commented on his team’s third dual win, “It was a nice win for us, but we are going to have to have our A game on as we wrestle on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday this upcoming week, which will be a big test for our team.”

            Wyatt Becker got the action started fast for the Gators again at 106, pinning Crookston’s Preston Desrosier with three seconds left in the first period. After the Gators’ Devin Dostal (113) accepted a forfeit, Isaac Novacek came to the mat next, looking to keep the Gators rolling early. Isaac did just that, pinning Crookston’s Shad Steer at the 1:50 mark at 120; the Gators led 18-0. Brandon Waage followed with a pin of his own at 126, recording a fall over Crookston’s Kyle Caputo  at the 1:48 mark.

            Crookston would finally look to get on the board, as the Gators’ Cory Hasbrouck would face Crookston’s Nate Merten at 132. Cory wrestled hard throughout the match, never giving up and almost recording nearfall points at the end of the match. Merten had built too big of a lead early and eventually beat Hasbrouck by a 14-5 major decision. Gunner Gust then came to the mat for the Gators at 138, looking to get his team back on the board, as he wrestled the Pirates’ Zane Baranski. After falling behind 2-0 early, Gunner would give Baranski a ride, getting a reversal and nearfall points to take a 5-2 first period lead in dramatic fashion. Gunner built off this and went on to dominate Baranski by a 12-3 major decision; the Gators led 28-4. The Gators’ next sent Jacob Jenson to mat next at 145, as he would take on the Pirates’ Wyatt Hanson. In the closest match of the night, going back and forth, Hanson would pull away late to win by 10-6 score. The Gators’ Brendon Dostal looked to prevent the Pirates from recording consecutive victories, taking on Crookston’s Luke Edlund at 152. Dostal would get out to an early 2-0 lead, but Edlund would come back, catching and pinning Dostal at the 2:38 mark.

            Tomm Ingle came to mat next, looking to get the Gators back on track, wrestling against last year’s state entrant Blake Bergeron of Crookston at 160. In a match featuring two wrestlers who placed in the top five at the Big Bear, Tomm looked ready and proved it, wrestling hard early and pinning Bergeron with 10 seconds left in the second period; the Gators led 34-13. After the Gators’ Tejay Wojchowski accepted a forfeit at 170 and the double forfeit at 182, the Gators’ John “J-Dog” Westman took to the mat against a very tough Josh Edlund of Crookston , who was also a state entrant from last year. In a quite entertaining match, John wrestled hard throughout the match, recording a couple takedowns, but Edlund proved to be too much in the end, pulling away late to win by a 12-4 major decision. The match soon ended after this, with a double forfeit at 220 and the Gators’ Alex Yeager accepting a forfeit at 285; the Gators won convincingly 46-17.

            The Gator JV, which has wrestled very well as of late, recorded 10 victories (out of 13 matches) against the Crookston JV. Recording victories for the Gator JV were Isaac Isane, Nash Sovde, Luke Nelson, Devin Pries, Dakota Gullikson, Logan Stein, Daron Sikorski, Seth Dostal and Adam Lorenson, who had two victories on the night. Keep working hard boys!

            The Gators will get back to the practice room, but not for long, as this week will be very busy. The Gators next action will be a quad in Detroit Lakes against DGF, Moorhead, and DL on Thursday, January 12. They will travel to Mahnomen to take part in the annual Mahnomen duals on Friday and finish off the weekend at the annual Rick Lee Invite in Bemidji. After this week we will definitely see what the Gators are really made of. If they hope be successful through this busy and tough weekend, they will need to keep working hard, push one another, and become one “TEAM”.  The Gators would like to thank the great support at the past two home duals, but hope to see some of Gator Nation during the very busy upcoming week! GO GATORS! 

           

           

Friday, January 6, 2012

Badger/Greenbush-Middle River 46 Crookston 17
106 Wyatt Becker (BGMR) over Preston Desrosier (CK) Fall 1:57
113 Devin Dostal (BGMR) won by forfeit
120 Isaac Novacek (BGMR) over Shad Steer (CK) Fall 1:50
126 Brandon Waage (BGMR) over Kyle Caputo (CK) Fall 1:48
132 Nate Merten (CK) over Cory Hasbrouck (BGMR) Major Decision 14-5
138 Gunner Gust (BGMR) over Zane Baranski (CK) Major Decision 12-3
145 Wyatt Hanson (CK) over Jacob Jenson (BGMR) Decision 10-6
152 Luke Edlund (CK) over Brendon Dostal (BGMR) Fall 2:38
160 Tomm Ingle (BGMR) over Blake Bergeron (CK) Fall 3:50
170 Tejay Wojchowski (BGMR) won by forfeit
182 double forfeit
195 Josh Edlund (CK) over John Westman (BGMR) Major Decision 12-4
220 double forfeit
285 Alex Yeager (BGMR) won by forfeit