By Brenda Erdahl
Sports Editor
The 23-1 Annandale-Maple Lake wrestling team claimed the Wright County Conference title by defeating a “scrappy” and “tough” New London-Spicer at Annandale, Thursday, Jan. 25.
The Lightning can now boast to have won two of the last three, and three of the last six conference titles.
Thursday’s win was made all the better for the fact that it was also youth, senior and parent’s night for the ANML team.
This year’s conference showdown was highly anticipated according to ANML Head Coach Ben Youngs, and it lived up to its billing.
The Lightning stormed out to a sizeable lead that New London-Spicer chipped away at leaving ANML with just enough to come out on top.
After pins by Brayden Fobbe and Cassen Brumm, a technical fall by Porter Pribyl, and a decision by Ayden Fitzgerald, the Irish were up 20-0.
“The lighter kids were supposed to win, and they did their job, each one of them,” Youngs said. At 133 pounds, Tavin Long was given the task of battling state-ranked Isaiah Nelson, and he wrestled him very tough, losing but showing NLS that ANML would not back down to their top kids.”
“In the middle weights, we had what we figured were four straight toss-up matches, and they were all battles! Shay McClory ended up winning 11-7, then ANML dropped three close matches that could have gone either way. Those big wins gave New London-Spicer a chance to beat us, and then at 172 they picked up a pin. One of their top kids was wrestling Alex Sundberg, and Alex was really giving him trouble. It was close until the NLS kid hit a big move and got the pin at the end of the match. That left us up four going into the last three matches,” Youngs said.
In what turned out to be the match of the night, Carter Courtright won a dramatic 8-6 match in overtime at 189 pounds.
“He was down in the first, but his conditioning helped, and he eventually tied it up before getting a takedown out of a scramble. With Nathan Klatt at 215, we felt pretty good, since Klatt has only one loss on the year, and he ended up finishing it off with a pin, giving us an insurmountable lead. His brother Adam then followed his match with a solid effort, losing only 7-4 to ranked Nathan Johnson,” Youngs said.
After the big night on Thursday, the Lightning wrestlers traveled to Monticello on Friday night, Jan. 26 and won 10 of 13 matches. Notable wins were Nick Olson over a tough Vinny Alm, and Nathan Klatt bumping up to 285 to beat Ben Bauer, who was third in Section 6AA last season.