I’ll be adding some photo galleries over the next week from the dual with Onalaska, the Spartan Invite and the Rochester Tournament. Today, you can see a few photos from the dual against Onalaska that ended with an 80-0 Spartan victory. Check that out below…
We’ve also updated the Coulee Region Power Rankings after the dual with Tomah. Sparta remains on top, but New Lisbon has slipped past Tomah. We could go either way with No. 2 between New Lisbon and Tomah, but based off Sparta’s dual with Tomah and how New Lisbon fared at the Spartan Invite, we’re going to give the edge to New Lisbon. Check them out to the right.
Finally, we plan on bringing you a number of articles from alums Steve Kimpel and Terry Smith this week detailing everything from training and nutrition to what it means to be a Spartan. There will be some good stuff so don’t miss out.
UPDATED 11:18am — Sparta now finds itself ranked sixth in the Wisconsin Wrestling Online division two rankings. That’s up one spot from the last poll and puts the Spartans one spot behind Lodi. Luxemburg-Casco holds down the top ranking in D2. To see the full rankings, click here.
Todd Sommerfeldt of the La Crosse Tribune penned a column today talking about the atmosphere at Tuesday night’s dual while using the Brueggen-Lynch match as a metaphor for what both teams were trying to accomplish. Check it out by clicking here.
I’ve got some information about the season below, but I wanted to put some photos of last night’s dual up here first as well as a video of Spartan fans in the final seconds of the dual. Check them out below…
This year’s Spartan senior class exercised some demons Tuesday evening defeating Tomah 41-20 and ensuring they would not play second fiddle to the Timberwolves their entire four years. Spartanwrestling.com also reached new heights Tuesday broadcasting the dual via live blog to 27 states, 39 cities in Wisconsin alone and to Spain, Ireland and the United Kingdom.
The team finished the regular season with a perfect dual meet record of 17-0. Sparta’s closest conference dual came at the hands of Holmen. Sparta won that dual 38-21 for a 17-point margin of victory. The Spartans scored 59 or more points in all but two duals and averaged 57.7 points in all conference duals.
In the next week or so, I should have a full-length video of the dual posted online so people from Sparta, Tomah and anywhere else can watch it. Before I head out here, I just wanted to say thanks to Mike Montgomery who moderated over a hundred comments and informed over a hundred different viewers from all over the world how the dual was progressing. I’ve been really happy with how he has taken the live blog by the horns and brought Spartan wrestling all over the globe. Also, a big shout out should go to the folks at Tomah who provided the Internet connection, which allowed us to do this in the first place. Finally, a big congrats to the Spartan wrestling team on finishing an outstanding regular season and best of luck in the tournament season.
Speaking of tournament season, the Spartans will now have 11 days off before the W.I.A.A. regionals in Viroqua on Saturday, February 13th. Sparta should expect host Viroqua to be one of their top competitors for the team title. Should the Spartans win the team title in Viroqua, they would advance to the team sectional three days later on Tuesday, February 16th in Wisconsin Dells. I’m going to try to get an internet connection for that night if the Spartans advance so hopefully we can another live blog.
Coach Larsen plans on writing a piece for the web site soon and when he does, we’ll get that up here right away. In the meantime, keep checking back as we begin scouting regional competition and some of the top sectional competition.
Sparta won its first MVC title since the 2003-04 season and snapped Tomah’s conference win streak at 35 Tuesday evening with a decisive 41-20 victory in Tomah. Sparta won eight matches on the night–five by pin and one by tech fall and saw Tomah fans leaving the gym by the 130 pound bout as Sparta jumped out to a 37-6 lead.
The match started at 171 pounds and saw Tomah’s Ross Lynch win a squeaker against Brandon Brueggen by a score of 1-0. The next three matches went decisively in Sparta’s favor as they racked up three consecutive pins. At 103 pounds, Sparta’s Bryce Nowaczyk met Tomah’s Tanner Dworak and appeared to have him stuck several times. In the end, Dworak gained two near fall points at the end of the second period which proved to be the difference in an 8-6 Tomah victory. However, that effort by Nowaczyk seemed to set the tone. Adam Wiedl came out at 112 to face Tomah’s Zurik Adler. In typical Wiedl-Zurik fashion, the match was tight until the third period when Wiedl started taking control. At the 5:31 mark of the match, Wiedl stuck Adler and swung the momentum in Sparta’s favor. After that victory, Sparta rattled off a tech fall from Brandon Rickert, a pin from Toby Mosely and a win by Derek VonRuden to clinch the match for the Spartans.
The gym was packed near the end of the JV segment of the night and the atmosphere was incredible. Crowd noise made most of the efforts of each coach to communicate with their wrestlers from the side of the mat useless. So basically it was another Sparta-Tomah dual and one that will be remembered for a long time by Spartan fans and wrestlers.
I have a ton of photos, a video and more to share with you tomorrow, but I have to leave here because I have a 3.5 hour drive back to Duluth. Below is the box score for each match. Congratulations to the Spartans on finishing a fantastic regular season and bringing home another MVC title. Also, thank-you to the people at Tomah for providing this Internet connection so we could live blog the match and update it so quickly.
171: R. Lynch, TO, dec. B. Brueggen, SP, 1-0. 189: J. Stanek, SP, pinned J. VonHaden, TO, 3:55. 215: M. Tourdot . , SP, pinned M. VonHaden, TO, 1:40. 285: S. Stevenson, SP, pinned L. Stromberg-Windau, TO, 1:58. 103: T. Dworak, TO, dec. B. Nowaczyk, SP, 8-6. 112: A. Wiedl, SP, pinned Z. Adler, TO, 5:31. 119: B. Rickert, SP, tech. fall S. McCarthy, TO, 0:00 19-1. 125: T. Mosely, SP, pinned T. Littlegeorge, TO, 2:53. 130: D. VonRuden, SP, dec. D. Reekie, TO, 2-0. 135: D. Scott, TO, dec. N. Winchel, SP, 3-0. 140: J. Organ, TO, dec. J. Amundson, SP, 6-4. 145: J. Dubord, TO, maj. dec. N. Anderson, SP, 11-3. 152: T. Van Haden, TO, maj. dec. M. Leis, SP, 10-0. 160: T. Tourdot, SP, dec. C. Genrich, TO, 4-0.
Here we go folks. Below is the live blog for tonight’s dual against Tomah. For those of you with access to the radio, you can logon and listen to Dale Stafslien on WBOG 1460AM or online at www.magnumbroadcasting.com. Finally, for those of you looking for additional information on tonight’s matches, the following may be helpful…
Tomah has won 35 straight MVC duals. Their winning streak dates to the beginning of 2004.
Sparta has won 22 of its last 25 MVC duals with all three losses coming to Tomah
Sparta has finished as a runner-up in the MVC the last three years.
During Tomah’s run of five [...]
Anyone who follows Sparta wrestling has probably heard tales of the dual between Tomah and Sparta back in 2000. It had all the makings of a classic dual. Two evenly matched teams. A conference championship on the line. A score so close that the winner of the last match would determine the dual winner. Controversy [...]
Each year, we try to do a scouting report of Tomah before the big dual. This year is no different. Below is a snapshot of how each of Tomah’s varsity wrestlers did at a few tournaments this year. It’s not a complete picture, but it should give an idea of where we can expect their [...]
Sparta won their fourth invitational of the year Saturday at the Rochester Century Invitational. Sparta’s 219.5 points were 49.5 points better than runner-up Eagan’s 170 points. Helping in Sparta’s change of fortunes against Eagan this year were Adam Weidl, Jordan Stanek and Matt Tourdot who all brought home individual titles. For his performance Saturday, Tourdot [...]
8:25pm – Sparta won it’s fourth invitational of the year overpowering the much larger Minnesota school of Eagan to capture the Rochester Tournament. Eagan, a school with an enrollment near 2,400, was no match for the Spartans this year. I’m still awaiting official results from the tournament but my sources tell me the margin of victory [...]
We have a video from last night’s dual between Sparta’s Brandon Rickert and Central’s Dylan Weigel. Check it out below to see the latest in a long line of Rickerts to step onto the mat for Sparta.
