Girls Multi Duals Preview

On The Mat

For a quick recap of last week, there were not many big tournaments after the Christmas tournaments the week before. The biggest one in the state was the Clash National Girls Duals in La Crosse.

Holmen was the lone Wisconsin competitor. Holmen is ranked 4th in Wisconsin and went 2-2 in their duals and placed 5th. Here are their results:

Holmen 30 – #3 Andrew, IL 39
Holmen 36 – #6 Hastings, MN 35
Holmen 34 – #5 Central Cass, ND 42
Holmen 42 – #3 STMA, MN 36
 
With only one Wisconsin team, I don’t want to do a big breakdown of the duals. My largest takeaway is that the top girls teams in Wisconsin can compete with the top teams from other states. We know our hammers in Wisconsin can compete with anyone (see 14U and 16U national duals), but it’s also nice to see our high school dual teams competing well too.
 
Now onto the preview of the multi-duals! We could call this event the “Unofficial Girl’s State Duals.”
 
First, the growth of this meet is incredible! Two seasons ago, there were four teams, with one team being a mash up of multiple schools. Last season featured eight teams. This year, there are fifteen schools and sixteen dual teams. (Holmen has two teams entered).
 
The duals have the top seven ranked teams in the state, along with numbers ten and fourteen!
 
Another interesting fact is three former college teammates at UW-Oshkosh are coaching on the top half of the bracket: David Rosenau of Chilton-Hilbert, Zachary Mueller of Menasha, and myself, Carl DeLuca of Holmen. If a dual between Menasha and Holmen happens, Zach and I have a bet of 100 burpees for the losing coach!
 
On the top side of the bracket is #1 seed, Holmen. Holmen has won the duals the past two seasons. While Holmen don’t have as many state place winners as some other teams, they are solid from top to bottom without any true holes and have a full lineup. They return four state qualifiers in Aini Anderson at 100, Allison Weiss at 120, Alexa Szak at 138, and Sophia Walter at 185, and state place winner Kaytlynn Lambries at 107.
 
Next up is #16 seed Chilton-Hilbert, they should be able to move around and fill 8-9 weight classes. Their best wrestler appears to be Olivia Hoefner at 165, who is 16-5 and will likely match up vs. Holmen’s 12-8 Avalee Euler, who has beaten some ranked opponents this season.
 
Bonduel (ranked #11 and seeded 8) features some absolute hammers, which is obvious considering there were the unofficial state champions last season! Kroening, the Berg sisters and 2023 state champion Madalyn Sokolski mean they are not an easy out, even without a full lineup.
 
In the 9th seed spot are Bi-State Champions Bay Port (ranked #5). They have a state place winner with Dakota Athey (3rd) and five ranked wrestlers. Olivia Konshak at 185 is a Bi-State champ and Autumn King at 235 was third. They can earn five or more wins against almost every team they would dual against.
 
Nekoosa/Assumption/Port Edwards are the 5th seed and ranked 6th in WI. Brooke Thurber does an incredible job there filling a whole lineup in a small school. They placed 6th at Bi-State with four girls placing in the top six.
 
Nekoosa takes on #12 seed Kimberly. If these duals are anything like the NCAA basketball tournament, don’t count out the twelve seed. Kimberly is one of only three teams, along with Holmen and Wausau West, to be at these duals all three seasons.
 
Tomahawk is the #13 seed. They have 25+ girls and are coached by Wisconsin women’s legend Alyssa Lampe. I expect them to  compete hard and fill a full team. The are a dark horse team to rise in the state rankings in the next few years.
 
Menasha (ranked #3) comes in as the four seed. They are a similar team to Bay Port, in that they are loaded with hammers. They have a “death row” from 120-138 and again from 165-235. Lilliana Banks is a returning state champ, freshman Taya Johnson has beaten state champion Emjay Neumann this season, and at 235, Allison Abel placed 6th at state last season.
 
I’m not going to make many predictions, considering I’m writing about my own team. I do expect the seeds to hold true in round one. After that, Holmen, Menasha, Bay Port, and Nekoosa all have a chance at the semis and any one of those four could make the finals! There is not a clear favorite.
 
The only other prediction I’ll make is that if Holmen wrestles Menasha, expect the score to be 72-0 in favor of Holmen 😉
 
Zach Mueller, mentioned above, will preview the bottom half of the bracket.
 

– Carl DeLuca, Holmen Women’s Wrestling

Coming in as the #3 seed is perhaps the biggest team in the state, Badger, who have over 30 girls listed on their roster. Anyone who knows girls’ wrestling in our state knows Carley Ceshker is the dominant force on their team, but two stud freshmen in Bryn Engel at 100 and Alexa Thomas at 107 give the bottom of their lineup an edge over most teams they’ll wrestle. The question is, can their other 9 girls do enough to get past some of the other tough teams in the duals?

Taking on Badger in the first round will be Holmen’s reserve team. As reserves, they likely won’t have enough firepower to get past one of the top teams in the state, but they’ll still have a full lineup and will certainly pick up plenty of wins throughout the night.

Next up in the bracket is a rematch from earlier in the season and what I think might be the best opening round dual of the night: 11th seed Shawano vs. 6th seed Neenah. Neenah is the #7 ranked team in the state and looks to be the favorite in this rematch. They won their first dual back in December 36-15 and have three former state qualifiers in their lineup: Joelle Reay, Kylee Kurszewski, and Amari Richards. They also had an impressive win over Bay Port in a dual earlier in the year too, but don’t count Shawano out of this one. They’ve got a full lineup and a couple tough under-the-radar wrestlers in Gwyn Hermann and Jenna Moede who may help them pull off an upset!

The next dual in the first round is another intriguing one, with #10 Eau Claire North taking on Pulaski, a team that came into the season ranked #6 but has since dropped out of the team rankings. Pulaski certainly has the bigger names in state champion Harlow Skenandore and state qualifier Leah Kapla, but without state finalist Ava Peters in their lineup yet this season they might be hard-pressed to keep up with a more well-rounded, complete team like Eau Claire North who just had a respectable showing at Bi-State, finishing in the top 10. This might end up being the closest dual in round one!

Kickapoo/La Farge/Youth Initiative has great numbers (especially given the schools’ small enrollment), but comes in at the 15 seed. Their best wrestlers are probably Lucca Grosse at 100 and #14 Mariyana Miller at 107, and they’ll look to lead Kickapoo’s Pink Army to some major upsets Friday night!

Last but not least is the current #1 in the state, Wausau West. While they may not have any state champions in their lineup, they probably have the deepest, most solid lineup from top to bottom in the entire state. With three wrestlers ranked in the top ten (Aaleeh Le, Lana Borchardt, and Christiana Nordstrom) and no real weak spots, the Warriors are my pick to make it to the finals from this side of the bracket!

No matter what happens, this will be a great night for Wisconsin Girls’ Wrestling!

-Zach Mueller, Menasha Girls Wrestling

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