Lightning meets its match at Battle of the Bolt

y Brenda Erdahl

Sports Editor

The Annandale-Maple Lake wrestling team had its work cut out for it at its first-annual hosting of The Battle of the Bolt, a dual team wrestling tournament held at Annandale High School, Saturday, Feb. 3. The Lightning went 1-3 on the day against a tough bunch of programs including Rocori, Perham, Willmar, and St. Michael-Albertville (STMA).

ANML’s first loss was to section foe Rocori, 36-27 then to Perham 34-25 before getting a 33-30 win over Willmar. In the final round, the Lightning fell to STMA 54-6. “The loss to Rocori will likely mean that the Lightning will end up seeded third, though that isn’t a certainty,” said ANML Head Coach Ben Youngs. “A few things contributed to the loss: Adam Klatt and Calin Hardin were at 9th grade state, we didn’t have some of our backups to move our lineup around due to the JV tournament, and we lost the flip which really helped Rocori. Still, we had our opportunities and didn’t capitalize.”

“There is a strong likelihood that we could see (Rocori) in the section semifinals, so we will need to make some adjustments,” Youngs said. In the match’s highlight, Nathan Klatt bumped from 215 to 285 and defeated the state’s number one ranked heavyweight.

After getting out to a big lead on Perham, the Lightning struggled to win matches through the middle weights against a “very scrappy team,” Youngs said.

Youngs described the Willmar match as a back-and-forth battle, with a “huge win” by Carter Courtright followed by Nathan Klatt’s big win.

“Against STMA, perennially one of the state’s best teams, the Lightning wrestled hard but managed to win only two matches, one by Cole LaFave and one by Nathan Klatt. In Klatt’s dramatic last second win, the STMA wrestler was called for an unsportsmanlike penalty with 20 seconds left to bring him within one, then in a flurry at the very end of the match Klatt ended up on top for a reversal,” Youngs said.

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