By Mike Ramczyk
MADISON – Maintenance workers rolled up mats, picked up garbage and wore out their headsets with instructionals.
The afternoon session had just wrapped up Saturday at the WIAA Individual State Wrestling tournament at Kohl Center in Madison, and Burlington senior Hegeman Tiedt stood still in a hallway in agony, writhing from shoulder pain endured in his third-place match at 220 pounds minutes earlier.
Burlington high school wrestling assistant coach Jason Bousman attempted to work out the kinks of Tiedt’s bruised shoulder as a basketball-sized ice pack stabilized the muscles.
Head coach Jade Gribble and assistant Jerry Barr stood around Tiedt in support, as a dejected Tiedt frowned with a deep sadness, the kind that comes with a wrestler’s final match of his high school career.
Oconomowoc’s Brett Samson, a Division 1 football recruit at South Dakota University, controlled Tiedt in a 9-3 decision.
Tiedt finished his storied career with a fourth-place finish at state one year after taking third at sectionals and just missing out on Madison.
With injuries throughout the season and controversy surrounding a Josh Bird disqualification, Gribble said it’s been a year full of adversity for the Demons. But Tiedt’s performance was the happy ending the squad desperately needed.
“I’ve never heard about a year like this where you have injuries that happen in the middle of the year, guys try to come back, and then they have to try to get conditioning back. It’s been a tough year,” Gribble said.
“Heg realizes this is it for him in high school wrestling,” he said. “He’s worked his butt off and put everything into it that he can.”
Tiedt fell to the defending state champion, fellow Wisconsin Badgers football recruit Mason Stokke, in semifinals Friday night. With a 220 division full of superior multi-sport athletes.
“What’s different than other years is you have athletes out there,” Gribble said. “Samson is looking to play tight end in college football. He’s a different football player. Stokke is a D1 college player. The Kenosha Indian Trail kid plays running back.”
Burlington’s other state qualifier, sophomore Nathan Crayton, fell in his first match at 182 pounds on Thursday.
Check out Wednesday’s Burlington Standard Press, Waterford Post, Lake Geneva Times and Westosha Report for more from these matches, and follow Mike Ramczyk @mikeramczyk17 at Twitter and like Standard Press Sports on Facebook for more.
Krattiger finishes strong
At 170 pounds, Waterford sophomore Jared Krattiger (51-1) edged Kimberly’s Blair Mulholland (45-2) with a 7-5 decision, capping a historic run where the short, stocky, explosive grappler entered Thursday’s state tourney undefeated.
Krattiger, Justin Ratkovec, Austin Thomas, Jack Trautmann and Sam Winski led a contingent of Wolverines that made school history under the direction of first-year head coach Tom Fitzpatrick and his staff.
“I felt good about my third place, after not getting what I set out for,” Krattiger said via Twitter Saturday evening. “I decided to not quit and get the next best thing there is, which is a third place medal.”
Mikrut, Morgan will battle for all the glory
Wilmot senior Jake Morgan, who is a four-time state wrestling qualifier, advanced to tonight’s 145-pound championship match thanks to a tiebreaker victory over West Allis Hale’s Oliver Arena.
After regulation, Morgan and Arena were given a minute-long sudden death extra period, where neither athlete scored. Then, with two more extra frames, the score remained locked at 1-1.
Finally, the judges decided to give Morgan the tiebreaker victory based on the entire match.
Morgan faces Stoughton’s Collin Kraus tonight at 6 p.m. at the Kohl Center.
The Ring of Champions will be broadcast live on Fox Sports Wisconsin.
Lake Geneva Badger Cole Mikrut, a beast at 285 pounds, pinned his semifinal opponent in 3:15.
He will go for a Division 1 state championship tonight against Pewaukee’s Blaze Beltran.
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Stay tuned to Jason Arndt, @thejasonarndt, and Mike Ramczyk, @mikeramczyk17, on Twitter, for updates of tonight’s championship matches.
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