Sparta Spartan Wrestling

Wrestling is big money for the WIAA

One of the perks of working for a newspaper was access to manuals and reports that regular fans of wrestling don't usually see.  One such report was the 84th annual yearbook of the WIAA.  This detailed all kinds of information about each sport, records of teams at state and how much each sport collected in funds from the start of tournaments (regionals, sectionals, etc.) right on through the state tournaments.

It reports the amount collected in tickets, the cost of trophies and awards, officials fees and meet allowances and a variety of other expenses.  At the end, we have total expenses vs. total receipts.  The difference between the two is profit.

For the 2006-07 wrestling season, the tournaments collected $729,822.53 in receipts while expenses totaled $380,715.31.  That's a difference of $349,107.22.  The state tournament alone brought in $564,879.53.  That goes to show how much wrestling fans love their sport and it was reflected in a packed Kohl Center for most of the rounds.

How does wrestling compared to other sports?  Check it out below...

Football
Expenses: $531,479.78
Receipts:  $902,433.57
Profit:  $370,953.79

Boys Basketball
Expenses:  $698,691.95
Receipts:  $1,732,947.86
Profits:  $1,034,255.91

Baseball
Expenses:  $141,670.12
Receipts:  $79,303.34
Profits:  -62,366.78

Track and Field
Expenses:  $307,882.61
Receipts:  $125,240.21
Profits:  -182,643.240

I would have guessed Track and Field would be one of the biggest moneymakers for all the sports, but as you can see that's not the case.  Now, the WIAA doesn't just pocket this money and not invest it in anything.  Much of the profits are used to cover travel and room expenses for teams traveling to the state tournament.  One reason why the state track meet could be down almost $200,000 is that there are so many teams that must be reimbursed.  A school could get only one qualifer in and that's money out of the WIAA's pocket.  In wrestling, there are far fewer schools that send athletes to the state tournament and wrestling is primarily a one-gender sport so teammates can share rooms, while in Track and Field, two athletes may require two rooms if they are different genders thus doubling the expenses. 

It's an interesting look at how the WIAA operates and just how much revenue is accumulated at all levels of tournament play.

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We have some exciting changes coming to Spartanwrestling.com.  Besides an all-new look that is expected toward the end of the summer, we will also be introducing a video site that will feature clips of Spartan wrestling past and present.  The video site will debut closer to the start of the season, but when it does it should have over 50 video clips ready to be viewed.  These include such matches from many of the state tournaments in the 1990s including both of Troy Lietzau's state championship matches.  There's also video of Elvis... or at least the Elvis impersonator who came to the MVC/Coulee championship and entertained the crowd before the start of the finals.  Those are just a few of the clips that will be on the site.  Be sure to keep checking back here for more information about some of the upcoming changes.

Sparta drops to Division 2 for 2009-10

Declining enrollment has dropped Sparta into Division Two for the upcoming school year.  Sparta will wrestle in the Viroqua regional next year with Adams-Friendship, Mauston, Richland Center, Viroqua, Westfield Area and Wisconsin Dells. 

The team winner of that Regional will face the winner of the Regional that includes Columbus, Evansville/Albany, Jefferson, Lake Mills, Lakeside Lutheran, Lodi and Marshall. 

On paper, Sparta looks to be one of the top teams in the entire section.  Top competition will include Lodi, Viroqua and Adams-Friendship.  Lodi is a perennial powerhouse in Wisconsin Division Two wrestling having qualified for the state team tournament every year since 2002 while taking home two state team titles and three runner-up titles in that span. 

While Sparta has moved to Divison Two, don't expect them to be any less competitive.  They enter the season with the advantage of being one of the largest Division Two schools in the state.  One of Lodi's top returning wrestlers is at the 215 weight class, where Matt Tourdot may end up wrestling next year.  There are a lot of good things about this move.  Even if Sparta can't dethrone Tomah from taking home another team sectional title, they can still remove the stranglehold the Timberwolves have on the MVC crown and do so as a school from a smaller division.

This drop from Division One to Division Two was not unexpected.  The past two seasons have seen a general enrollment drop of around 80 students.  About the same amount have made their way over to the charter schools High Point and Sails over the last few years and students there cannot compete in sports.  That's a drop of over 150 students in just a couple years time. 

There will be a lot of changes come tournament time in February, but I can guarantee that it will be just as exciting as ever.

Matt Tourdot places 4th at Folkstyle National Tournament

Three Spartan wrestlers participated in a national tournament that was held at the UNI (University of Northern Iowa) Dome in Cedar Falls, IA on April 3rd and 4th.  The competitive tournament consisted almost entirely of state placewinners, qualifiers and champions.  Toby Mosley, Tom Tourdot and Matt Tourdot were given a chance to wrestle at this tournament that is often times harder than many state tournaments.

First off, let's see how Toby Mosley did.  Mosley lost his first match to the eventual national runner-up.  In his second match, he held the lead 7-2 at one point before getting caught.  Mosley competed in the Cadet division at 130 pounds.

• Champ. Round 1 - Toby Mosley (Spartan Wrestling) received a bye (Bye)
• Champ. Round 2 - Lucas Smith (Bison Wrestling Club) won by pin over Toby Mosley (Spartan Wrestling) (Pin 1:51)
• Cons. Round 2 - Jack Jenkins (DeForest) won by pin over Toby Mosley (Spartan Wrestling) (Pin 3:53)

Tom Tourdot's first opponent ended up placing third at the tournament.  Tourdot brifely held the lead in the second match before his opponent took over.  Tom was wrestling at a new weight class jumping over 20 pounds to wrestle in the Cadet division at 160 pounds.

• Champ. Round 1 - Ryan Valline (Hammerin` Hawks) won by pin over Tom Tourdot (Spartan Wrestling) (Pin 5:56)
• Cons. Round 1 - Richard Carlson (Iron Mustangs) won by pin over Tom Tourdot (Spartan Wrestling) (Pin 2:21)

Matt Tourdot fared a little better than his teammates.  He handled his first two opponents with ease before losing to Arizona's state champion.  Four matches later, Matt ended up placing 4th and beating an Iowa state champion along the way.  Tourdot wrestled in the Junior division at 215 pounds.

• Champ. Round 1 - Matt Tourdot won by pin over Brandon Johnson (Park of Cottage Grove) (Pin 1:44)
• Champ. Round 2 - Matt Tourdot won by decision over Trevor Voelker (Team Excel) (Dec 7-4)
• Quarterfinal - Aaron Pavlenko (Sunkids Wrestling) won by decision over Matt Tourdot (Dec 9-4)
• Cons. Round 4 - Matt Tourdot won by pin over Tayler Goodyear (G`s unit) (Pin 0:26)
• Cons. Round 5 - Matt Tourdot won by decision over Johnny Krochak (Valley Elite) (Dec 9-2)
• Cons. Semi - Matt Tourdot won by major decision over Cody Krumwiede (Waverly Area Wrestling club) (Maj 12-3)
• 3rd Place Match - Ryan Fank (Cedar Hawk Wrestling Club) won by decision over Matt Tourdot (Dec 6-5)

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Here are a few photos of the guys at the tournament...

In the last photo next to Tourdot is Viroqua's Taylor Henry who placed third at 285 pounds in Division Three at this year's WIAA state tournament.  Henry won the Cadet division at 285 pounds at the USA Folkstyle Nationals.

Jared Rickert earns Academic All Big 10

Spartan alum Jared Rickert earned Academic All Big 10 honors this week after finishing up his sophomore season at the University of Minnesota.  In order to be named Academic All Big 10, the student-athlete must maintain a minimum 3.0 grade point average for the current academic year.

Read more about Rickert's award and the other Gopher wrestlers who earned that honor here...

Congrats to Justin Schroeder

Spartan wrestling alumni Justin Schroeder is happy to announce a new addition to his family.  Max Schroeder joins his sister Carly as the second of his two children.  Below are a few photos of Max.  Congrats can be sent via the comments section at the bottom of this post.  Congrats Justin!

 

John Roddick leads Sparta at Youth State Tournament

John Roddick placed fourth at the Wisconsin Wrestling Federation Kids Folkstyle State Tournament leading a contingent of seven Spartan wrestlers who made the trip to the Alliant Energy Center for this past weekend's tournament.

Below is a photo of John (2nd from left) on the podium after finishing fourth.

Coach Brian Brooks commented that he is very proud of the efforts of all the state qualifiers as well as the efforts of the entire program.  Brooks believes that the Sparta Youth Wrestlers have developed a great deal of confidence and they are a team ready to compete with the best.

Full results for all seven Spartan wrestlers are below...

Cory Zimmerman, 96/97 birth year, 67 pounds
-Match 1=Lost 7-0 to Justin Folley of City Kids Wrestling Club (Milwaukee).  Folley eventually won 5th place.
-Match 2=Lost 2-1 in a hard fought match to Dalton Langer of Saint Croix Falls in the wrestle back.
-Did Not Place

John Roddick, 96/97 birth year, 73 pounds
-Match 1=Defeated 4x state qualifier Hayden Scharmer of Beloit 4-2
-Match 2=Lost by pin to eventual state champion Robert Lee of Fax Valley Elite.
-Match 3=Defeated Nick Cahalan of Desoto 6-2.  John and Nick are common opponents and it is always a very good match.  John defeated Nick 3-2 at regionals 2 weeks ago.
-Match 4=Defeated Colin Novak of Blackhawk Wreslting 8-0.
-Match 5=Defeated Joseph Joerndt of Burlington 4-0.
-Match 6=Lost by pin to Cole Martin of Lancaster in the 3rd place match.
-4th place in state.

Brock Polhamus, 96/97 birth year, 88 pounds
-Match 1-Lost to eventual 4th place winner Deremius Gordon of City Kids Wrestling Club 6-2.
-Match 2-Lost to Cole Yoder of Oshkosh 6-0.
-Did not place

Brett VonRuden, 98/99 birth year, 72 pounds
-Match 1-Lost 2-0 to Michael Dudek of Mukwanago
-Match 2-Pinned Jerrett Davison of Unity
-Match 3-Lost 5-0 to 6th place winner Adam Becker of Johnson Creek
-Brett finished in the top 12 in the state. 

Alice Todryk, 00/01 birth year, 45 pounds
-Match 1-Lost 4-0 to Ryan Dineen of West Allis
-Match 2-Lost by pin to Kolten Grzybowski of Coleman
-Did not place

Luke Wendorf, 00/01 birth year, 66 pounds
-Match 1-Lost 16-2 to Logan Romos of Kenosha
-Match 2-Lost 9-2 to Ryan Neu of Hustisford

Brage Pfaff, 00/01 birth year, 75 pounds
-Match 1-Lost 12-1 to state runner up, Nate Crayton of Burlington
-Match 2-Defeated Logan Peterson of Ellsworth 9-5
-Match 3 Lost to 3rd place winner Brady Peat of Iowa-Grant 6-0
-Brage finished in the top 12 in the state.

Some images from 2009

I've been going through and organizing a lot of the stuff on my computer right now and came across some images from the JV portion of the Sparta-Tomah dual as well as some images of middle school wrestling practice.  Thus, I've decided to put together a little slideshow of those images and I promise next year to get them up in a more timely manner.  The middle school images are interesting in that they show three former high school coaches in Scott Zurfluh, Mike Montgomery and Mike Roddick teaching the future of Sparta wrestling what they know. 

Check out the slideshow below...

Ahnen continues to excel

Former Sparta wrestler Jenna Ahnen was recently featured in an article in the La Crosse Tribune.  Ahnen, now a sophomore at UW-La Crosse, has become one of the top players on the Eagles' softball team and in the entire WIAC.  At week's end she was hitting .464 with two triples, a .538 on-base percentage while going 8-for-8 in stolen base attempts this year.

The article is below, but can also be found by clicking here.

Ahnen (above) takes care of business at regionals in 2007.  Below, the face of her Holmen opponent is pretty close to the same face opposing pitchers are making this year after facing Ahnen, who is now a shortstop for UW-La Crosse.

From pins to putouts
By JOEL BADZINSKI | jbadzinski@lacrossetribune.com

Jenna Ahnen is proud of her small chapter in area sports history.

Ahnen was a four-year varsity wrestler at Sparta High School, where she competed exclusively against boys, and finished her career with a second-place finish at the United States Girls Wrestling Association national meet.
“I still get recognized,” Ahnen said of her time as a prep wrestler.

But these days, Ahnen is focused on playing for the UW-La Crosse softball team. If she keeps it up, people might forget all about the wrestling.

Ahnen, a sophomore, has started all 20 games at shortstop and leads UW-L with a .464 batting average, two triples and a .538 on-base percentage. She is also 8-for-8 on stolen base attempts and has one home run and 14 RBI.

Even though Ahnen has been a starter since the beginning of her freshman year and is a big reason why the Eagles are 15-5 this season, she is not ready to declare herself a finished product.

“I don’t know everything,” Ahnen said. “I’m just a sophomore.”

UW-L coach Chris Helixon watched Ahnen as a softball player and wrestler during her senior year of high school. He was already projecting her as a starter for the Eagles.

“Just from recruiting her, I could tell,” Helixon said. “She’s very athletic and has a big range. I saw her field ground balls on the other side of second base. I also saw her wrestle in high school and you could see she had mental toughness.

“I knew as a freshman she would be mature enough to handle playing in college.”

Ahnen started 40 of 41 games in 2008 and batted .365 with three homers, 15 RBI and 15 stolen bases. Defensively, she had a .900 fielding percentage, including 14 errors, which she wasn’t happy about.

“Last year, I did well, but I had a lot of errors,” Ahnen said. “A lot of them came where we’re at now, at the halfway point. This year, I have two (errors) so I feel I’ve improved.”

During UW-L’s doubleheader sweep of Viterbo on Thursday, Ahnen, had four hits, scored three runs, drove in a run, stole a base, and threw a runner out at home to preserve the shutout in the second game.

“She can drop a bunt down for a hit, or hit it out of the park,” Helixon said. “As a baserunner, she’s very opportunistic. Any slight mistake and she’ll take the extra base.”

Ahnen considered wrestling in college — she had some scholarship offers from women’s programs — before committing to UW-L to play softball.

“Wrestling helped me tremendously as an athlete because it requires so much determination,” Ahnen said. “I’m glad I went with softball. I love the girls here and I love UW-L.”

Relive the Sparta vs. Tomah Dual

While it didn't go in Sparta's favor this year, fans of Sparta and Tomah wrestling alike can now relive the 2009 dual for the MVC championship. 

The entire dual is available for you to watch below.  It's a new feature that we hope to expand upon in the future.  I'm pretty sure we will put up the entire Sparta-Tomah dual each year because it ends up being one of the most anticipated duals of the year.  However, should Sparta and Holmen find themselves in a dual that will decide the conference title then we will try to do the same for that--basically any big matches.

You can view the dual below.... or click here to see it at Vimeo.com...

Please let us know if there are any issues viewing this video. 

Site Issues & the future of Spartanwrestling.com

If any of you have tried to access the schedule and results page for this past season along with many of the records, you might have been redirected to www.derekmontgomery.com

That's because those files were hosted on my old photography website and I just launched a new one this past week and in the process, visitors to the old website get automatically forwarded to that new address.  I thought that would work just for the front page, but apparently applies to all the other pages as well.  What does that mean for you?

That means for the next week or so that information will not be accessible.  I'll be migrating those files and pages over to a new host this week so you might have to change your bookmarks.  I'll let you know when that migration is complete and the links on the left side of this page will reflect that.  For now, you can just check out some of the photos on my new website.

The look and feel of Spartanwrestling.com will also be changing soon.  The web address will stay the same, but we will be moving to a blog that operates on Wordpress as opposed to Typepad.  Wordpress blogs are much more customizable, which will allow us to bring you new features, more videos and generally display more information on the page making your experience much richer and easier.  This won't happen for at least a month and probably longer than that, but when it does you'll notice right away.

A variety of new content will also be added to the website soon thanks to Pat Stevenson.  Lots of historical information, old articles and more will be scanned, uploaded and added to the website.  Be sure to check that out as there is a lot of fascinating information.

Finally, later today we will be providing a link to something that many of you out there who don't live in Sparta will really appreciate.  Hell, even those of you who live in Sparta and go to all the matches will probably enjoy this too.  It's something that we plan on doing every year for now on and this will simply mark the beginning.  I'm not going to spill the beans just yet so check back here later today, but I can say it's one of the most exciting additions to the website in years and hopefully will mark the beginning of something great.