Sports
Falls Qualifies 9 Wrestlers for Sectional Tournament
Kleser finishes second at 103 pounds to lead the Indians in the Homestead Regional.
Menomonee Falls wrestlers didn’t do well as they had hoped, but Coach Jim McMahon had a word of advice for the nine that qualified for the sectional at Saturday's Homestead Regional. There’s always next week.
“Next week you get the opportunity to beat people you’ve lost to this week,” McMahon said. “I’ve seen some crazy things happen in the sectional. Next week is the week.”
Leading the Indians at Homestead High School was freshman Jeff Kleser, who finished second at 103 pounds. Kleser pinned his first opponent, John Hokeness of Homestead, in 1 minute 15 seconds. He advanced to the finals by beating Tyler Colegrove of Germantown, 4-0. In the title match, Kleser was pinned by Arrowhead’s Andrew Crone in 3:49.
Find out what's happening in Menomonee Fallswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Other qualifiers include Dan Stark at 112, Austin Meyers at 125, Bill Steinke at 152, Justin Bayer at 160, Ayoola Olapo at 171, Dominic Thomas at 189, Yaphay Harvey at 215 and Cam Greene at 285.
Falls finished fourth in the tournament, which was won by Arrowhead.
Find out what's happening in Menomonee Fallswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
“We’re not happy with our placing at all,” McMahon said. “We let a lot of matches in the semifinals get away from us. We have a young, inexperienced team and it’s a learning experience.”
Two of Falls more inexperienced wrestlers did qualify for the sectional. Olapo and Harvey are both first-year wrestlers. “Neither one of them had seen a wrestling match before this season,” McMahon said. “But they’ve both done a good job. They’re hard workers and they picked it up quickly.”
Germantown senior Jesse Thielke began his quest for a fourth state championship by winning two matches at 130 pounds. Thielke, who has his sights set on making the U.S. Olympic wrestling team in 2012, beat Mitchell Berenz by a technical fall (18-0 score) and capped his day by pinning Homestead’s Spencer Bold in 50 seconds. Thielke improved his record to 44 -0 for the season.
Other highly-touted wrestlers who advanced Saturday include Germantown’s Cody Szohr (37-5) at 119 and four Arrowhead standouts: Andrew Crone (37-5) at 103, Adam Yde (34-8) at 125, Jake Sueflohn (42-0) at 145 and Shane Hughes (28-5) at 189.
For complete tournament results go to www.trackwrestling.com
