Two area wrestlers remain in title contention at state tournament

Tomah’s Marques Fritsche and West Salem-Bangor’s Evan Wolfe remain in state title contention after the opening day of the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association State Wrestling Championships Thursday.

Fritsche earned back-to-back wins Thursday to advance to the Division 1 semifinals at 170 pounds.

He opened his state tournament run with a 13-6 decision over Griffin Bekish of Kaukauna in the preliminary round and followed with a 7-5 victory over Mukwonago’s Luke Stromberg in the quarterfinal round.

Up next for Fritsche is a semifinal match-up with Lincoln Willett of Oconomowoc in tonight’s (Friday) semifinal round, which gets underway at 7 p.m.

A win will put Fritsche in the 170-pound title bout Saturday evening.

Wolfe, a Bangor High School student wrestling on the West Salem-Bangor cooperative, scored a big opening round victory to advance to the Division 2 quarterfinals.

Wolfe dominated in a 15-1 major decision over Roman Skorupa of Campbellsport in Thursday’s opening to advance to this (Thursday) afternoon’s quarterfinal round.

Two other area wrestlers  - Tomah’s Hayden Larson and Sparta’s Corbin Hauser – captured wins in the Division 1 preliminaries, but were defeated in their quarterfinal matches Thursday night.

Larson opened with a 6-3 decision over Girard Jones of Menomonie before suffering a loss to Cullen Quick of Menasha in the 285-pound quarterfinals.

Larson bounced back to pin Germantown’s Joe Inga late in the first period of a consolation-round match and will face Tyler Pitcel of Mukwonago in another consolation match this (Friday) afternoon.

Hauser started his state-tournament run by pinning Brookfield Central’s Benjamin Otto 1:51 into a Division 1 preliminary match at 160 pounds, but suffered a 5-1 loss to Burlington’s Ben Kumprey in the quarterfinals.

Hauser’s state run ended in the consolation round with a 9-3 loss to Trey King of Kimberly.

Tomah’s Braden Bemis and Sparta’s Madden Connelly were both eliminated from contention after back-to-back losses.

Bemis fell to Michael Parker of Slinger in the preliminary round and was beaten by Jordan Craft of Manitowoc Lincoln in a consolation match.

Connelly fell to Oak Creek’s Ben Kawczynski in the opening round and was beaten 7-2 by Keith Tourtillott of Shawano in the consolation round.

The WIAA state wresting tournament will continue this afternoon and evening at the Kohl Center in Madison, before wrapping up Saturday evening.