Wolverines garner 3 regional champions
By Chris Bennett
Correspondent
Waterford Union High School’s wrestling squad had eight athletes move to title matches with three coming away as winners at the Feb. 15 WIAA Division 1 regional tournament hosted by Oak Creek High School.
The Wolverines, who qualified 11 wrestlers for sectionals, will have a chance to send them to the individual state meet at The Racine Prairie Sectional on Saturday.
The 11 wrestlers advanced after finishing among the top four in their respective weight classes in the Feb. 15 regional tournament.
At the sectional tournament, meanwhile, the top two in each weight class moves to the state tournament held Feb. 27-29 at the Kohl Center on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.
As for the Feb. 15 regional tournament, in addition to three individual champions, eight others advanced to sectionals.
“We knew we had a chance,” coach Tom Fitzpatrick said. “They all wrestled pretty well. It was really good to see.”
Two-time state champion Hayden Halter (40-2) beat Racine Park’s Joseph Mendoza (35-2) on a 4-2 decision for the title at 126 pounds.
Fitzparick said Mendoza scored the first takedown, but Halter wrestled well, rode-out Mendoza when needed to, and scored a takedown as well as two escapes over the course of the match.
Fitzpatrick said Evan Danowski (39-9) winning a regional title at 160 might be the surprise of Waterford’s day. Danowski beat Lucas Benn (26-11) 6-3 for the regional title.
Lucas Johnson (42-6) beat Sabri Sino (38-7) 7-4 for the title at 106 pounds.
Hudson Halter (41-6) finished second finished second at 113. Joshua Cherba (34-10) finished second at 132 and Lucas Winski (29-10) came in second at 145.
Will French (26-10) finished second at 152 and Zach Kaminski (38-13) came in second at 170.
Hunter Rudzinski (30-21) finished third at 138 and Jacob Cherba (27-19) finished third at 182.
Jeremy Cherba (11-16) came in fourth at 120.
Waterford finished with 206.5 points. Mukwonago won the regional title (310).
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