Waconia Wrestling Club will again be offering a Freestyle/Greco program for kids (boys and girls) ages 1st grade - 12th grade (at least 1 year of Folkstyle wrestling experience required to participate) to grow their technical skills and to grow in their knowledge and fundamentals of the sport by training in these international styles. Freestyle & Greco-Roman are the 2 primary styles trained internationally and are different in their rules, scoring and terminology compared to American Folkstyle wrestling. Both are exciting and fast paced and will help your wrestler make gains in their technique and skillset for the next Folkstyle season.
REGISTRATION, T-SHIRT & SINGLET ORDER LINKS:
For all 7-12th Grade wrestlers, registration is due by 3/19 and for all Youth wrestlers registration is due by 4/5.
For all Youth & 7-12th Grade wrestlers wishing to purchase a Waconia Wrestling Red/Blue singlet, all singlet orders for purchase or rental must be made by 3/10 (given turnaround times).
PROGRAM DETAILS:
Coaches/Clinicians & Staff: Max McEnelly, Tim Stapleton, Tyler Safratowich, Nate Matousek, Manny Rivera, Jon May, Jeff Katherman
Cost: FREE for all Waconia wrestlers. $50 registration fee for any non-Waconia wrestlers (from the 2023-24 season). USAW Membership required for all participants. Plus participants may purchase a t-shirt ($20) or purchase/rent a (red/blue) singlet as well, if desired, for competition.
7-12th Grade Practice / Training Schedule:
Youth Practice / Training Schedule:
Rules Clinic & Mini-Tournament with Chaska/Chanhassen - April 18th
KEY DATES & ADDITIONAL TRAINING:
See mnusawrestling.org for all MNUSA Open Freestyle/Greco Tourneys
April 6th (Freestyle) - Eastview Tourney
April 12th (Greco) & 13th (Freestyle) - Apple Valley Greco & Freestyle Tourney
April 19th (Greco) & April 20th (Freestyle) - Forest Lake Combo Tournament
April 27th Freestyle & Greco (Combo) - Hutchinson Open
Regional Training Site Practices & Info (Augsburg University)
May 4th-5th MNUSA Freestyle & Greco State Tournament (Rochester Mayo Civic Center)
May 11th-12th Northern Plains Freestyle/Greco Regional Tournament (Rochester Community & Technical College)
Join us for Freestyle & Greco this year!
Our co-ed youth and girls only club programs are currently in progress and began on November 13th. We are extremely excited for the year ahead with 132 total kids registered across our club programs this year, including 123 kids in our PreK-6th grade Co-Ed Youth Program, 27 in our K-12th grade Girls Program.
K-6th Grade Dual Team Results: Our competitive K-6th Grade Dual Team has started the year strong with 2 dual tournament championships and 7th place at the 48 STMA Brawl, see below for full results:
STMA BRAWL - 7th Place Overall (out of 48 teams)
New Prague Duals (5 team tournament) - 12/3 - Tournament Champions!
Mound-Westonka Duals - 12/10 (7 Team Tournament) - Tournament Champions!
Waconia Youth also faced the Stallions of Chaska/Chanhassen in an exhibition match on 12/14 and won 57-18
Thank you to ALL who attended the inaugural Waconia Girls Wrestling Camp, held on July 25-26, 2023. Over 60 girls attended the camp, which was run by clinicians and camp staff members: Brian Moyer, Marlynne Deede, Katie Lange, Ali Bernard-Sprenger, Jake Avre. Thank you as well to staff members/volunteers: Tiana Moyer, Nick Hackman, Derek Sikora, Ryan Miller, Lynette Alger, Steve Woitas, Brian Broll, Jeff Katherman and the Waconia 7-12th Grade Team.
A lot of planning, effort and energy went into organizing and hosting Waconia Wrestling's annual Takedown Cancer, Hall of Fame Night & and Youth/High School Dual Events on Thursday, January 19th, 2023. All that attended and watched were rewarded by an evening to remember for the ages!
Waconia Wrestling Club's Youth Dual team started the night vs. New Prague's Youth squad, and the young Wildcats came out victorious by a score of 42-30. The kids did a great job preparing and wrestling hard, and was really special to be able to have this event at home "under the lights". This led to the JV matches (of which there were many wrestlers featured that were just in the youth program 1-2 years ago). Then, some emotional words and speeches were given this event's TD Cancer Sponsor Family, (Allen, Tara, Will, Jack and Cooper Koosmann) as Tara and Allen shared about their journey in Allen's battle against cancer. Many thanks for everyone who helped donate or bought raffle/merchandise that went into this fundraiser benefitting the Randy Shave Cancer Research and Community Fund. After this, long-time Varsity Head Coach, Kelly Wagener was inducted into the Waconia Wrestling Hall of Fame. The evening events built momentum into the Varsity Dual that featured our hometown #3AAA ranked Waconia Wildcats vs. #2AA ranked New Prague Trojans. This event had many story lines, including many nationally and state ranked wrestlers across both New Prague and Waconia's varsity lineups. This dual also featured a rematch of Waconia's Max McEnelly's only loss of the year, which was to New Prague's, Joey Novak (back in late December). The dual lived up to the hype with Waconia winning a come-from-behind victory (32-28) by the Wildcats winning the final 4 weights and McEnelly winning a close match (6-2) vs. Novak to redeem his loss from earlier in the season. Many thanks to all who attended.
Missed the event? Rewatch the entire event on Waconia Wrestling YouTube here: TD Cancer & New Prague vs. Waconia Livestream (available on YouTube)
Waconia Wrestling's Takedown Cancer Event on January 19th was a terrific success!
Congratulations to our 21 member Waconia Youth Dual Team which finished 5th overall out of 48 teams on Saturday (Jan 22nd) at STMA High School, which many teams consider the toughest tournament of the year. Our Waconia Youth Wrestling program has attended this tournament every year for the past 9 years, and this performance tied for the best finish in program history! The team gave every ounce of effort they could and beat Rocori 48-16, Hastings 36-34, lost to Stillwater 30-42, beat Farmington 43-29, beat Staples-Motley 38-34. Great job to all the kids for their hard work and effort!
Team Members: Lucas Turek, Chris Doyen, Jacob Reiner, Wil Chmielewski, Oliver Turek, Nolan Vos, Easton Vos, Logan Kleinknight, Wyatt Chmielewski, Levi Baynes, Will Katherman, Joe Alger, Will Beste, Beau Bieniek, Tucker Ledoux, Michael Reiner, Collin Meuwi
On July 31st, 2022, Max McEnelly made program history by winning the Bronze Medal at the U17 World Freestyle Championships in Rome, Italy while competing at 92kg. Max's efforts also helped Team USA win its first ever U17 Team Title as well - setting the team scoring record as well with 4 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze medals!
USAW U17 Tournament Recap: Here's a great recap on the USA Wrestling website: https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Wrestling/Features/2022/July/31/MFS-wins-team-World-title.
Bronze Medal Post-Match Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXgUEqMDxuY
Here's a recap of the event:
Rd of 16: Max's first match was against Uzbekistan's Sherzod Poyonov - scoring , and Max was victorious winning 11-1 on the strength of 5 takedowns + 1 point lost for a lost challenge.
Quarterfinals: His next match was against Bulgaria's Andriyan Valkanov where Max won 11-0 with another 5 takedowns, qualifying him for the semifinals.
Semifinals: In the semi's he faced 2021 U17 Bronze Medalist and 2022 European Gold Medalist, Karil Kurugliyev from Kazakhstan. In a hard fought match, Max lost 11-2, falling to the Bronze medal match.
Bronze Medal: In the Bronze match, Max faced India's Sahil Jaglan where Max traded passivity (shot clock) points and Jaglan lost a challenge call giving Max the win for a 2-1 victory!
Platinum Golf Sponsors 2023
Checkout our Waconia Wrestling YouTube Channel for some great content and features of our youth and high school program wrestlers.