The B-B-E Jaguars wrestling team defended their No. 1 state ranking by winning all three matches of tonight's talent-laden quadrangular hosted by West Central Area school in Barrett. All four teams in attendance are ranked No. 7 or higher in the latest Guillotine rankings. It was a wild night! B-B-E is now 14-0 in duals. The four teams entered tonight with a combined 70-3 record in dual meets: Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City 23-4; West Central Area/Ashby/Brandon-Evansville 18-0; Royalton/Upsala 17-0; and B-B-E was 11-0. Five duals were wrestled, and the cumulative record going out of the night was 75-8 between the four teams. For Royalton/Upsala and A-C-GC, they did not wrestle in the third round of the night as they just went head-to-head at Kimball last Friday.
Final scores for B-B-E tonight:
#1 B-B-E 40, #7 Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City 27
#1 B-B-E 39, #4 Royalton/Upsala 24
#1 B-B-E 41, #5 West Central Area/Ashby/Brandon-Evansville 28
Royalton/Upsala, who wrestles with a student-athlete from Sauk Rapids-Rice, entered tonight's match with an unblemished 17-0 record. At 126 pounds tonight, Royalton/Upsala's Alex Diederich faced B-B-E's Ryan Jensen in a match that Jensen won by a 4-2 decision. In the COVID-shortened 2021 wrestling season, Alex Diederich wrestled at 113 and 120 pounds for Sauk Rapids-Rice. At the Section 8AAA tournament last March, Diederich took second place in the 113-pound bracket to advance to the individual state tournament. He is a supremely talented wrestler.
Royalton/Upsala's most recent match before tonight was a 34-29 win over Kimball Area last Friday in a Central Minnesota Conference dual. Against Royalton/Upsala, the hometown-laden Jaguars came back from an early 9-3 deficit to build a 27-15 lead through the middle weights. It was a huge, huge team win. I am so proud of our Jaguars!
WCA/A/B-E entered tonight's action with an 18-0 record in dual meets. A-C-GC was 23-4 in duals coming into tonight.
What a night! In the house was Kevin Presler, who is a former coach at Royalton and a 1975 Brooten graduate who was a co-captain of the very first Brooten Buccaneers conference champion wrestling team. Match recaps will follow below the videos.
**Here's video from the A-C-GC match, with Ethan Mueller wrestling at 120 pounds:
**Here's two more exciting matches in the match up with A-C-GC:
In those two matches, Maximus Hanson won by a 6-4 decision at 160 pounds against Mason Studemann, and then Evan Young lost a 4-3 decision at 170 pounds to No. 8-ranked Jake Mortensen. Young trailed 2-0 just 20 seconds into the first period, but he took a 2-1 deficit into the second period. Mortenson earned a second-period takedown to lead 4-1 going into the third period. Young started the third period down and fought off back points throughout while standing up a couple times in escape attempts. With 15 seconds left, Young nabbed a reversal to cut it to one point but was unable to turn Mortenson for any back points in the final ticks.
More to come.
B-B-E vs. A-C-GC:
The No. 7-ranked Falcons started the match with a win by pin for a 6-0 lead at 106. Brett DeRoo then tied the match up with his pin in just 40 seconds at 113. At 120, Ethan Mueller started strong and earned a pin (3:08) in the second period for a 12-6 lead. At 126, the rampage continued for B-B-E when Ryan Jensen earned a pin (1:22) in the first period. The 132-pound match featured two state-ranked wrestlers with No. 1-ranked Tyler Bents and No. 7-ranked Cole Holien, who moved down a weight from where he's ranked at 138. Holien put up a great fight, but Bents expanded on a 2-0 lead after one period to lead 5-1 going into the third. Bents led 11-3 and ultimately won a 12-4 major decision to give the Jaguars a 22-6 lead. At 138, Tyler Jensen trailed 2-0 to Jevon Williams early in the first period. They wrangled up to the first buzzer as Jensen came close to earning a reversal. Williams got an escape and another takedown to lead 5-0 going into the third before earning a win by a 7-0 decision. At 145, B-B-E's Tanner Viessman put up a heck of a fight against No. 7-ranked senior Brady Holien, who led 4-1 after two periods. Holien got a reversal in the third period and won by a 6-1 decision. At 152, Blaine Fischer won by forfeit to make the team score 28-12. At 160, Maximus Hanson faced A-C-GC's Mason Studemann and led 2-0 after one. Hanson led 5-0 in the second period before Studemann got a reversal. In the third, Studemann earned anothe reversal with Hanson ultimately winning by a 6-4 decision. At 170, Evan Young wrestled his heart out against No. 8-ranked Jake Mortenson. You can watch action from Hanson and Young's matches in one of the videos above. At 183, Carson Gilbert earned a hard-fought win by an 11-6 decision against Isaiah Renne. At 195, Talen Kampsen faced No. 1-ranked Jaxon Behm, ranked in the 220-pound division. Behm won by pin with a time of 47 seconds. At 220, Ethan Spanier picked up a win by fall (1:01), and the Falcons finished the match with Terrell Renne's win by fall (4:53) over Bryce Feuerhake.
That's all for now. Friday has been super busy so far. A new blog post will feature an interview with Coach Mueller.
