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Independent News Herald / February 4, 2015 / Page 8
Raiders finish third at Park Region Conference Tournament
by Coach Mike Barthel
The Raiders had an exciting
week with the only action being
the Park Region Conference on
Saturday in Underwood. It was
also the same day as the Brainerd
JH wrestling tournament where
all of our younger guys participated.
At the PRC the Raiders only
had nine wrestlers in action, but
they demonstrated outstanding
wrestling. To start things off for
the Raiders, senior Anthony Kern
wrestled at 120 and pinned his
first opponent to set up a rematch
with Jeremiah Harper from
Mills. In a dominating performance Kern notched the victory
and a spot in the finals where he
faced off against Noah Becker
from LPGE-B. They have wrestled each other many times over
the years and it has been back
and forth, but this time Kern fell
short and placed second.
At 132, Braydon Bertram
wrestled well, but was just out
muscled and lost a few tough
matches, placing 5th.
At 145, Zack Waln won his
first match and then lost a hard
fought battle in the semifinals
to Jake Larkin of WCA. In the
wrestle backs Waln got his 60th
Truax notches 100th career win
Hayden Truax pinned his opponent at the January 22 triangular held at the Bertha-Hewitt School.
career victory. He then wrestled
Ty Held from Royalton-Upsala
for third and scored a fall.
At 160, Ethan Kimber rolled
over his first opponent and then
faced Royal Crow of WCA in
a rematch. It was a very tight
match and Kimber was able to
counter a late take down attempt
by Crow to seal up the victory.
Nighthawks win on Senior Night
Schlosser and Nibbe win PRC crowns
Seventh grader Austin Carr did all he could, but was overpowered by UNC’s Liam Cochran.
—photo by Trinity Gruenberg
gan Nibbe made quick work of
their opponents to end the dual
at 36 all. The ref opened the rule
book and went to the 8th criteria
before declaring us the winner
37-36.
This past Saturday was the
46th annual Park Region Conference tournament in Underwood—a conference that has had
rich tradition of wrestling talent
in the past and this year’s edition
was no different. Many of the
weights were four to five deep
setting up for great semifinal and
final matches.
The Nighthawks entered a
slim line-up and the final team
standings showed that. However,
the boys entered in the tournament came ready to compete and
wrestled their best as we placed
five of the nine wrestlers with
three of them being finalists—
two of them claiming the title.
Key highlights were fourth
seeded Mattocks upsetting the
state’s eighth ranked wrestler to
make the finals. Schlosser came
in seeded fifth, but navigated his
way to the top of the podium with
some very disciplined wrestling.
Mason Nibbe was up a couple
weight classes, but was smart
enough to wear his larger opponent down to secure fifth place.
McKeown had a tough draw getting two great wrestlers off the
bat, but completely dominated
his fifth place match, and Logan Nibbe completed his perfect
regular season, pinning his way
through the heavyweight bracket
en route to his second PRC Title.
Browerville 68—WCA 57
Last Tuesday the Browerville
Tigers boys’ basketball team
took on the Knights from West
Central Area. WCA defeated the
Tigers earlier this season up in
Barrett, but the Tigers handed
the Knights just their second
Prairie Conference loss and third
overall loss of the season. The
win for Browerville pulled them
within one game of second place
in the Prairie Conference, and
gave them their fourth win a row.
Browerville came out of the
gate with an impressive offensive effort that showed good
ball movement and passing. The
Tigers had a nicely balanced
offense with Tanner Stepaniak
coming off the bench to lead the
way with three makes from behind the arc. Browerville’s defense did a nice job of containing
the Knights’ offense despite the
efforts of Jay Zimmerman who
finished the half with 11 points.
After scoring 34 first half
points, Browerville came out
and put up another 34 points in
the second half. Bryce Irsfeld
scored 11 points and finished
with 17. Ryan Warwick scored
all 9 of his points in the second
half, while making 7 of 10 from
the free throw line. The Tigers
made 13 of 17 from the charity
stripe in the half, and finished 18
of 24 for the game.
With seven minutes remaining, the Tigers had a comfortable
56 to 39 lead. Grant Heid’s basket would be the last for the Tigers who then made 10 of 13 free
throws to finish the game. Heid
scored 16 points in this game.
Zimmerman again led the
way for the Knights, scoring 14
more for a total of 25 points.
Browerville 59—St. John’s 65
The Johnnies from St. John’s
traveled to Browerville last
Thursday and once again were
able to defeat the Tigers. Earlier
this season, the Tigers lost to the
Johnnies in overtime in Collegeville.
Browerville scored 34 first
half points. This was the Tigers’
seventh half of 33 or more points
out of their last eight halves
played. However, they could not
find an answer to slow down the
Johnnies as they scored 33 points
of their own. Browerville’s largest lead in the half was five
points. They lost that lead and
went down by as many as three
points before taking a one point
advantage into the locker room.
Bench scoring for the Tigers
gave them a big boost. Brendan
Emery scored 8 and Tanner Ste-
paniak added 5 points in the first
half.
St. John’s came out hot to start
the second half with the first ten
points, eight of those points by
Joe Stock, to take an early nine
point lead. Heid got the Tigers
back within six with a 3-pointer
from the corner. Irsfeld scored 8
points in a row, sandwiched by
free throws from Trevor Johnson
and Noah Iten to keep the Tigers
within reach, but were unable to
slow down the Johnnies scoring.
St. John’s finished out the
game by making 13 of 14 from
the free throw line. The Tigers’
Stepaniak brought the Tigers
within four with a 3-pointer with
2:19 to go, and with just over a
minute, Irsfeld scored to make it
a two point game. Browerville
was able to get several good
looks, but couldn’t connect on
any of them. Several free throws
later and the Johnnies won this
by a final score of 59-65.
Johnson and Irsfeld finished
the game with 12 points each.
Heid had 9 points. Stepaniak
and Emery each scored 8.
Browerville 94—Ashby 38
Last Friday night the Browerville Tigers traveled to Ashby.
Coming off of a loss, the Tigers
took out some frustration on a
struggling Ashby team, and won
by a final score of 94 to 38.
At the 14 minute mark,
Browerville had a 14-7 lead.
Both teams connected on
three point shots before Browerville’s defense kicked in and the
Tigers went on to out-score the
Arrows 34 to 12. Browerville
forced Ashby into 12 first half
turnovers. Heid led the first
half arsenal with 18 of his game
high 20 points. Johnson scored
13 points in the first half. When
the two teams left the court at
halftime, the score was 51-22,
Browerville.
The second half was much
like the first, and everyone saw
some extended action. Browerville continued to increase their
lead; at one point they led by
as much as 49 points. Jordan
Gorder’s 10 points and Cody
Lisson’s 8 paced the way for
the Tigers run during the second
half. Irsfeld scored 9 points to
help increase the lead and put
the game into running time at the
nine minute mark.
Browerville out-rebounded
the Arrows 34 to 23 and dished
out 30 assists and had 13 steals.
Double digit scorers for Browerville: Heid, 20; Johnson, 19; Irsfeld, 17; and Gorder, 10.
evening.
In JV action, Justin Crandall, Nye Becker, Kellen Pulliam, and Dawson Quistorff
all picked up some valuable experience
and a win on the night.
The Park Region Conference tourney is
always a great measuring stick going into
the post season. The Wolves competed in
nine of the 14 weight classes, and finished
seventh overall. All nine of the Wolves
wrestlers came away with podium finishes
on the day.
Noah Becker picked up his second conference tourney title with a convincing 6-2
finals win over ranked Anthony Kern of
BHV, at 120 pounds. Becker was the lone
finalist for the Wolves.
The Wolves had four third place finishers as Jadon Buntjer (113), Nicholas Middendorf (126), Creg Donabauer (138), and
Remington Meagher (152), dropped just
one match on the day. Austin Chyba (220)
claimed 4th, with Keegan Cavallero (182)
5th, and Dalton Butler (160) and Gabe Pesta (106) placed in 6th.
The Wolves had three JV conference
champions on the day. Nic Becker, Dawson
Quistorff, and Justin Crandall all earned
champion honors, going 3-0 in the tourney.
Nye Becker claimed 3rd, with Kellen Pulliam claiming 4th place overall.
The Wolves wrestling season is quickly
coming to an end. On Tuesday evening
the Wolves host Pierz and Albany, in Long
Prairie, before starting the post season on
February 14 with team Sections in Thief
River Falls. The 8AA individual tourney
will be on February 20-21 in Perham, with
the Minnesota State Wrestling tourney being held at the Xcel Energy Center February 26-28.
travel to Breckenridge on Thursday for a triangular with Breckenridge and Border West. This is
a change to the schedule. It was
originally scheduled for Tuesday,
but was changed to Thursday, so
please note the change.
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Tigers avenge earlier
loss to Knights
Wolves finish seventh in conference tourney
by Coach Jacob Lorentz
The LPGE/Browerville Wolves hosted
West Central Area, on Tuesday, January
27, for the Park Region conference south
dual meet title. West Central came out
victorious with an impressive 52-12 win.
The Wolves then participated in the Park
Region Conference individual tourney
on Saturday, January 31, in Underwood.
LPGE/Browerville finished seventh out of
the nine teams.
West Central Area jumped out to an early 15-0 over the Wolves and never looked
back. West Central is currently ranked
tenth in Class A, and proved worthy of
their ranking. The Wolves were in some
close matches, but just couldn’t get the finish.
Noah Becker picked up a pin for the
Wolves, with Creg Donabauer and Dalton
Butler also winning their matches on the
My wrestler of the week has
to be Hayden Truax who not only
positioned himself for a big push
for a state berth, but he notched
his 100th career victory. Way to
go Hayden!
Next week the Raiders will
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by Michael Arvidson
Last Tuesday, the Nighthawks
hosted their last home event of
the season. It was “Senior Night”
and the boys sent the seniors and
fans home with a smile and a victory. For wrestling fans, it was a
great dual, which is hard to find
these days. The matches were
very competitive and the score
went back and forth. In the end,
it came down to Tom Leeseberg
scoring first in a match that he
lost that gave us the dual win on
the 8th criteria.
The evening started off with
us taking two forfeits and adding
a decision as Zach Olson, who hit
a granby roll in the final seconds
to record his first win on the varsity, put the Nighthawks out front
15-0.
UNC would climb back into
the match with two pins to draw
within three. Will Dodds was
down five points, with less than
thirty seconds left in the match,
before he high bridged off his
back for the reversal and two sets
of near fall points to win.
Leeseberg took a very talented
wrestler to double overtime before falling short.
Kyle Schlosser fell in overtime and we looked to be in trouble.
UNC added another pin before, Nic Shircliff showed his
senior experience and glued his
opponent to put life back in the
gym and tie the dual.
UNC went up twelve points
as we headed into the final two
matches. Josh McKeown and Lo-
In the finals he faced top seeded
Brad Kroll from Royalton-Upsala. It went into overtime and
looked to go into double overtime, but a questionable call by
the officials kept Kimber from
victory.
At 170, Holt Truax continued
wrestling at a top level by pinning his opponent in the finals in
the first period crowning him a
champion.
At 182, Hayden Truax received a bye first round and then
he lost in the semifinals putting
him in the wrestle backs. His win
in the wrestle back round was his
100th career victory and sent him
into the third place match. In his
placing match, Truax dominated
Blake Amundson from WCA and
scored a fall which placed him
third.
At 195, Ethan Orlando had
about the toughest bracket that I
have ever seen. The fourth seed
is ranked second in state so it
was going to be extremely tough
to get a victory. Although he
never did win a match, Orlando
wrestled very well and looks to
make some waves for the team
and next year.
At 220, Dillon Card took to
the mat for the first time with
a pin, a tech fall and a 9-1 win
which gave him his fourth conference title.
At 285, Jarod Hall also had
his first action for the year. Although he went 0-2 he showed
some good things and with him
and Card back, they look to
strengthen the back end of the
Raiders line up.
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