In a meet that went down the bitter end, the Burlington Demons came up one point short in their first ever trip to the WIAA state team wrestling tournament Friday in Madison, losing to Holmen 27-26.
The loss eliminated the Demons from the tournament while Holmen advanced to face Hartford in the semifinal round on Saturday.
Friday’s quarterfinal goes down as a classic with the lead see-sawing throughout the meet and the final result in doubt until the end of the last match at 170 pounds where Holmen’s Duncan McKinney held off Jesse Busch, 4-2, to secure the team win.
In the end, it was Holmen’s ability to avoid the pin that made the difference in the match. Burlington gave up 12 team points on a pair of falls.
The Demons jumped out to a 7-0 lead on a major decision by Ryan Jazdzewski at 182 and a decision by Greg Miller at 195. But Holmen roared back to stun the Demons and take a 9-7 lead when senior Neal Miller was pinned at 285.
From there the lead changed hands several times. The best match of the night came at 126 pounds where Burlington’s Derek Gill moved up one class to face Holmen’s James Bennett. The two state individual meet medal winners wrestled to a 5-5 draw and were tied 6-6 after a series of three 30-second overtime periods. Bennett ended it seven seconds into the sudden-death double overtime period with an escape.
Wins by Brody Fitzpatrick (138), Willie Ehlen (145) and Brandt Gavin (160) gave Burlington a 26-24 lead heading into the final match, setting up a winner-take-all battle between Busch and McKinney.
See the March 9 Burlington Standard Press for a complete report from the meet.
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