Trautman, Guardiola highlight 5 champions
By Chris Bennett
Sports Correspondent
and Mike Ramczyk
Waterford Union High School wrestling coach is painfully candid when describing his team’s performance in the Southern Lakes Conference Varsity Wrestling Tournament, which took place Feb. 3 at Delavan-Darien High School in Delavan.
“We let one get away from us at the conference tournament,” Fitzpatrick said. “The title was there for the taking, but we just couldn’t quite close the deal.”
Waterford competes Saturday in a WIAA Division 1 Regional Tournament at West Allis Central High School.
At Delavan-Darien, the Wolverines competed for six titles and won four.
“Overall it was a pretty good day,” Fitzpatrick said. “We feel, as a team, we left a lot of team points on the table – 32, to be exact. Since we lost by only 24.5, it’s easy to see how we could have pulled off the upset.”
The Wolverines scored 211.5 points to Burlington’s 236. The Demons won the SLC title.
Fitzpatrick swapped weight classes for two wrestlers, and the decision paid dividends for the Wolverines. Jack Trautmann III wrestled at 220 instead of 195 and Tony Mastrocola wrestled at 195 instead of 220.
Mastrocola (9-1 SLC) pinned his way through the tournament, and dispatched of Union Grove’s Keith Storm-Voltz (7-3 SLC) in 2:34 in the 195-pound title match. Fitzpatrick said Mastrocola scored the most points of any Waterford wrestler at the SLC Tournament.
Trautman (10-0), ranked second in the state at 195 in the latest Wisconsin Wrestling Online state poll, defeated Burlington’s Max Travis (8-2 SLC) 10-5 in the 220-pound title match. Travis is an Honorable Mention selection at 220 in the same poll.
“Tony wrestled a phenomenal tournament,” Fitzpatrick said. “We commend Jack Trautman III for taking on the challenge of moving up a weight class to face the state-ranked Travis.”
For Trautman, it was about beating Burlington, as his championship bout against Travis was visibly heated.
Trautman threw up his “W” to the jeering Demon fans in support of his school, and Travis twice carried and drove Trautman into the mat despite being well out of bounds.
It was exactly the type of ultra-competitiveness one would expect to see at conference.
“My team needed me to take a champion away from Burlington so we could compete for a share of the conference title,” Trautman said Saturday after the meet. “And my key to victory was to out-pace and out-wrestle him on my feet.”
“I was strong enough to take them (220 pounders) down just like they were 195 pounders, but turning them was a bit more difficult.”
At 152 pounds, Alex Guardiola (7-1 SLC) beat Burlington’s Ben Kumprey (8-2 SLC) by a 9-0 major decision for the SLC title.
Jared Krattiger (10-0 SLC), ranked No. 1 in the state at 182 in the most recent WWO state poll, defeated Burlington’s Nate Crayton (8-2 SLC) by a 23-8 technical fall for the SLC title.
“I was focusing on scoring as many points as possible,” Krattiger said.
Anthony Christenson (9-1 SLC) was pinned by Burlington’s Jake Skrundz (9-0 SLC) in 4:26 in the final at 145 and finished second. Boyd Biggs (8-2 SLC) got pinned by Elkhorn’s Hunter Hummel in 21 seconds and finished second at 285.
Will French (4-1 SLC) finished third at 120 and Zach Kaminski (7-4 SLC) finished third at 160.
Sam Winski (6-4 SLC) placed fourth at 126.
At 106, Lucas Johnson (3-7 SLC) finished fifth and Dalton Danowski (5-5 SLC) finished fifth at 170..
Joshua Cherba (6-5 SLC) finished sixth at 113, Nick Goldammer (4-6 SLC) finished sixth at 132 and Jacob Cherba (5-6 SLC) finished sixth at 138.
At West Allis Central, the top four wrestlers in each weight class advance to the sectional tournament, which is Feb. 17 at New Berlin West High School. The Wolverines are also competing for a berth in the WIAA Division 1 team sectional tournament.
“This is going to be a very contested competition with Mukwonago,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s going to come down to which team can score more bonus points, and who wrestles with the most heart. We certainly look forward to the challenge.”
The top two wrestlers in each weight class at each sectional advance to the WIAA Division 1 Individual Wrestling Championship Tournament Feb. 22-24 in Madison at the Kohl
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