The past week found the team in action three times. First up on Tuesday, in Barrett, was the quarter-final match in which the #1 seed Knights faced off with the #8 seed Wadena-Deer Creek Wolverines. The Knights put their foot on the gas in the first period of the opening bout and kept it there till the final match. The team dismantled the Wolverines by way of 76-0. On to the semi-finals.

The semi and final duals were wrestled in New York Mills on Saturday the 19th. The Knight walked in looking loose and confident as they faced off in the semis with the hometown #4 seed New York Mills Eagles. The Eagles fared a bit better than the Wolverines earlier in the week but the results were just as ugly. The Knights clipped the Eagles wings by a score of 66-12...total destruction.

The finals found a pair of familiar opponents. The match would pit the #2 seed Berth-Hewitt/Verndale/Parkers Prairie Raiders vs. the WCAABE Knights. The last few years have seen these two meet in the finals a fair amount of times with the Raiders taking the victory. This year the Knights were ready for war. The lower weights of Owen Gruchow, Carter Lohse, and Adam Lohse started off the dual going 3-0, all decisions, giving the team breathing room to work with. The Raiders gobbled up a fall at 126 lb which was answered by Hunter Gruchow at 132. The Raiders attempted to stay in the dual with a pin at 138 lb but after that the Knights went on a scoring terror. Solomon Wales, Reubens Swanson, Ashton Danner, Anthony Sykora, Beau Robinson and Will Rustan all compiled to a score that ripped up the Raiders by way of 48-21. The WCAABE grapplers had punched their ticket as a team to the big show.

When reviewing the scores above, the word dominant came into play. How the Knights chewed their way through the section was the epitome of that word. A few statistics stand out. The team went 3-0. Inside of that span they won 37 out of the possible 42 matches. That is a whopping 88% win ratio! The total scoring was equally impressive. In all there were 223 points scored in the 3 duals. The Knights posted 85% of all the scores by piling up 190 of their own. To reach these high scores the team needed bonus points. Mission accomplished, in the matches they won the team racked up bonus points at a ridiculous rate of 80%. That is over three quarter of their matches they won were by more than a decision. In total the team bullied their way to 28 matches with some form of an extra score. The most remarkable feat of the entire week is not just the 22 falls the Knights recorded, it was the speed in which they happened. The team gathered up 15 first period pins, four second stanza pins and one fall in the third period. In total the average time it took for a Knight to plant his opponent's shoulders to the mat was a mere 82 seconds. Think about that, the average time it took to get 22 pins which is 52% of the total matches wrestled, took just one minute and twenty-two seconds. If that is not dominant wrestling, then I do not know what is.

Milestones an accolades for the week were aplenty. Undefeated wrestlers at 3-0 included Owen Gruchow, Carter Lohse, Adam Lohse, Hunter Gruchow, Solomon Wales, Ashton Danner, Anthony Sykora, Beau Robinson and Will Rustan. Justin Blascyk was undefeated at 2-0 as was Shad Swanson who went 1-0. Shad also recorded the fastest fall of the week (and it happens to be all season) with a blazing eight second fall over Kash Stoecker from WDC. 2-1 wrestlers included Mason Richter, Reubens Swanson and Colton Lindquist. The Knights had a pair of 75 career win wrestlers as on Saturday Ashton Danner and Solomon Wales both earned that recognition.

This edition of ‘Wrestler of the Week’ goes to senior and captain Ashton Danner. If one were to look at the box scores you may wonder...what is so special about this kid? No pins, no majors, no bonus points? What does need to be noted is that only a month ago Ashton broke his arm in a match in Kerkhovan. Last week he returned to the mat with a cast. This week he helped lead his team by going 3-0. If anyone wonders how tough could it be to compete in a cast, try it. Wrap your arm till its immobile in a towel, tape it tight and try grabbing objects that are always pulling away. Difficult is barely the word.

With team sections in the rear view mirror and the state tournament looming, it is time this Saturday, February 26th for the Section 6A Individual Tournament. The Knights will head to Wadena next weekend to find out who will move on individually along with their team in search of hardware in St. Paul.