Four of the six area wrestlers that competed at the State Individual Wrestling Meet returned home with medals.
Clintonville’s Jake Reiter placed fourth at 195 pounds and New London’s Austin Wyngaard placed fifth at 160 in Division 2; and Manawa’s Casey Johnson placed fifth at 220 and Garret Griffin placed sixth at 160 in Division 3.
New London’s Scott Cook (126) and Brett Handschke (182) also competed, but did not place.
Reiter opened the tournament Feb. 27 with a 13-7 win over Brandon Brennan of Valders, but was pinned in 3:27 in the quarterfinals by eventual champion Joe Rademacher of St. Croix Falls. He stayed alive in the tournament with a 7-1 win over River Valley’s Zach Koch in the wrestleback round before advancing to the third-place match with a 9-5 win over Brock Steidt of Ellsworth. Berlin’s David Meza, also out of the Eastern Valley Conference, pinned Reiter in 3:00 in the third-place match.
Wyngaard made it to the semifinals by winning his first two matches, a 3-1 decision over Pewaukee’s Jake Pagel and a 5-1 win over Lodi’s Nathan DeGroff. He dropped an 8-0 decision to eventual champion Gable Frandsen of Ellsworth in the semifinals and handed East Troy’s Jeremy Dedick a 13-0 defeat in the fifth-place match.
Johnson had a bye in the first round and pinned Glenwood City’s Donovan Fornal in 4:56 in the quarterfinals. That win put him in the semifinals against eventual champion Chase Nottestad of Westby, but Nottestad picked up a 6-3 win to advance to the finals. Johnson then fell to C.J. Pillath of Coleman in the wrestleback round 10-4, but went up against Fornal again in the fifth-place match and won 11-0.
Griffin handed Westfield’s Jay Kaenel a 9-8 defeat in the preliminaries, but was pinned by Boyceville’s Bryor Hellman in the quarterfinals in 5:44. He defeated Ozaukee’s Kevin Beckmann 3-2 in the wrestleback round to advance to the fifth-place match, where he fell to Weston/Ithaca’s Mason McCauley 5-4.
Cook and Handschke each lost their first-round matches and did not advance. Sparta’s John Roddick pinned Cook in 4:16, while Handschke fell to Ellsworth’s Dennis Schutz 8-2.