Waconia Wrestling

Registration is now available for our Waconia Wrestling Club Fall/Winter Programs as follows:

Junior Grapplers (PreK-K) Program (co-ed): This is an introductory program for all PreK – Kindergarten kids aimed at building athleticism and a passion for the sport while having fun and learning functional wrestling movements through games and physical activity. PreK wrestlers must be at least 4 years old to start. Practices will be 1x per week from November – January typically on Monday nights from 5:30-6:30pm.

Youth Novice/Intermediate Program (co-ed): This program is for 1st - 6th graders that are either brand new ("Novice" wrestlers) or those with 1-2 years of experience ("Intermediate" wrestlers) and is geared toward working on the basics and fundamental techniques to aid the individual development of each kid. Practice groups will be formed based on grade, weight, skill level and experience to group practice partners appropriately. Practices will be 2x per week from mid-November – late January on Tuesdays/Thursdays from 5:30-6:30pm.

Youth Advanced/Competitive Program (co-ed): For 2nd - 6th graders that have 3+ years of experience or are seeking a competitive level practices and training, our Advanced/Elite program will provide more detailed technical curriculum and a more challenging pace to practice advancing each kid to the next level of their development. Practices will be 2-3x per week from November – early April on Tuesdays/Thursdays from 6:45-8:00pm and occasionally on Mondays (tbd timing).

*NEW* Girls Only K-12th Grade Program: Beginning this season, WWC will begin offering an “all area” Girls Only weekly (for female wrestlers) practices/training opportunities 1x per week from mid-November – March on Monday nights from 6:45-8:00pm (tentatively). Kindergarten – 6th grade girls can also participate in any of our youth co-ed programs (listed above) at no extra cost. *NOTE: For participation in our Waconia 7-12th Grade co-ed (Minnesota State High School League) program, go to the WHS activities website for more information and registration (waconiaactivities.org) or contact Coach Hackman.

Fees: See the required fees below.

• Jr. Grapplers - $85/wrestler
• Girls Only - $135/wrestler
• Novice/Intermediate/Advanced - $135/wrestler
• USA Wrestling Membership Fees - $55/wrestler

NOTE: USAW membership fees can be renewed/purchased during or outside registration (and include liability/accident insurance). See the USA Wrestling website for more information on membership, benefits and other good information at Membership (teamusa.org)

Other Equipment/Attire: For practice, the required equipment includes: 1) t-shirt/shorts/sweats, 2) clean shoes OR wrestling shoes (preferred) and a mouthguard for wrestlers with braces. Wrestlers are strongly recommended to purchase / wear headgear as well for their safety as well during practice (especially during live wrestling). Communications will be sent out upon registration on ways to acquire equipment and preferred vendors. Hustle and Heart Sports in Waconia also has used gear in inventory including singlets, shoes, headgear, etc.

Registration Link & Deadline: Late registration remains open until November 8th via the link below. T-shirts and singlet orders that were made by 10/1 should be delivered by mid-November. T-shirts/singlets ordered after 10/1 will be delivered in late December. 

• 2023-2024 Co-Ed Youth & Girls Only Club Registration Link 

For questions, contact Waconia Wrestling Club Programs Director, Jeff Katherman at jdkatherman@gmail.com or 612-968-5488.

Waconia Youth Wrestling has formed a new strength & conditioning partnership offering this year with TCO Training Haus. To support enhanced and sustained success this season (and in future years) on the mat, this new program is open available across grades 3rd – 6th. It’s always fun to train as teammates together with like-minded goals and a mindset to constant improvement, and we hope many will find value in this program. All sessions will be held at the Waconia TCO Training Facility (by Target). See below for all the details!

Available Packages:

Preseason Only (Mondays/Wednesdays) Sept 11 – November 15th (20 sessions included) - $170: https://clients.mindbodyonline.com/classic/ws?studioid=735534&stype=41&sTG=87&prodId=102517

In-Season 1 (Mondays) Nov 27 – Jan 26th (7 sessions included) - $59.50: https://clients.mindbodyonline.com/classic/ws?studioid=735534&stype=41&sTG=87&prodId=102518

In-Season 2 (Mondays) Feb 5 – Mar 29th (8 sessions included) - $68: https://clients.mindbodyonline.com/classic/ws?studioid=735534&stype=41&sTG=87&prodId=102519

Preseason + In-Season 1 + In-Season 2 Package (35 sessions) - $262.50: https://clients.mindbodyonline.com/classic/ws?studioid=735534&stype=41&sTG=87&prodId=102520

In-Season 1 + In-Season 2 Package (15 sessions) - $120: https://clients.mindbodyonline.com/classic/ws?studioid=735534&stype=41&sTG=87&prodId=102521

Registration Deadlines:

November 23rd for In-Season 1 Only or In-Season 1 & In-Season 2 Package: November 23rd

February 1st for In-Season 2 Only

Questions/Contacts: 

Check out all the details & flyer below and please forward all questions to Waconia Training Haus staff including Josh Anderson (JoshAnderson@TrainingHaus.com); Matthew Mont Plaisir (MatthewMontplaisir@TrainingHaus.com) & Wyatt Scheu (WyattScheu@TrainingHaus.com)

Flyer: See attached and at the following link: Waconia Wrestling / Training Haus Youth Strength Program Flyer

Registration for WHS Winter Sports is open for the 2023-24 School Year. See the information below on how to register. All information is posted on the WHS Activities page here: https://www.waconiaactivities.org/. The Waconia High School Wrestling Program is eligible for all co-ed students 7th-12th grade (pending MSHSL eligibility rules). Program and competition opportunities include competition across the local middle school meet circuit, JV/Varsity invitationals and JV/Varsity Dual meets. For more information on the program, please contact Waconia Wrestling Varsity Head Coach, Nick Hackman at nhackman@isd110.org.

The 2024-24 season and practices begin on Monday, November 20th and the season ends the weekend of the MSHSL State Tournament (Feb 29th - March 2nd).  

WHS Activities Registration Link: https://1913a.cf.wordwareinc.com/

If you have questions (or issues) with registering your student, please contact Lori Schwirtz at (952-442-0683) or lschwirtz@isd110.org.

The Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) requires each district to have a signed copy of a MSHSL sports physical on file for every 7th -12th grade athlete.  Athletic physicals are valid for 3 years.  If you need to submit an updated sports physical, you can do so as part of the online registration process.  

Waconia Wrestling Club has had an active spring/summer season so far with over 40 K-12th grade kids again participating in our homegrown Freestyle/Greco Program! See below for a recap of some of the results so far and some of the exciting events coming up where our kids will be competing.

April 29th-30th - U20 U.S. Open Freestyle Nationals - Recap

In Las Vegas, NV at the U.S. Open, Max McEnelly, 2022 UWW U17 World Bronze Medalist, wrestled extremely well in his first year at the U20/Junior age group level at 86kg and had an outstanding tournament going 5-1 with wins over Wyatt Voelker (Freshman at UNI), and returning UWW U20 79kg World Team Member, Brayden Thompson. Max ended up Runner-Up losing to fellow Minnesotan and UWW U20 86kg Silver Medalist, Bennett Berge of SDSU by score of 7-4. With the win, Berge secured a spot in the U20 World Team Trials that will be held on June 3rd/4th.

May 6th-7th MNUSA State Freestyle & Greco - Recap

Waconia Wrestling Club sent a strong contingent of youth and high school wrestlers to MNUSA Freestyle/Greco State in early May in Rochester, MN. Kudos to all the kids who partcipated, including:

Freestyle

Henry Cook (8U) - 4th Place, Oliver Turek (8U) - 4th Place, Lucas Turek (10U) - 3rd Place, Eddy Cook (10U) -6th Place, Beckett Marsh (14U) - 5th Place, Ian Olson (16U) - 4th Place, Vincent Halliday - 2nd Place, Carter Katherman (16U) - DNP, Wesley Hammarsten (16U) - DNP, Blake Miller (16U) - DNP, Jon Kopp (16U) - DNP

Greco-Roman

Vincent Halliday (16U) - 2nd Place, Carter Katherman (16U) - 5th Place, Jon Kopp (16U) - 6th Place, Blake Miller (16U) - DNP.

May 13th-14th USAW Northern Plains Regional Championships - Recap

Waconia Wrestling Club had a strong showing at the prestigious and always tough Northern Plains Regionals in Wisconsin Dells. This tournament acts as an automatic qualifier for the USAW Freestyle/Greco Nationals that are held annually mid-July in Fargo, ND.  Kudos to all the kids who partcipated, including:

Freestyle:

Vincent Halliday (16U) - 4th place, Carter Katherman (16U) - 4th place, Lincoln Vick (Junior) - DNP, Maverick Mueller (Junior) - DNP (lost blood round)

Greco:

Vincent Halliday (16U) - 4th place, Carter Katherman (16U) - 4th place

June 3rd - 17th Waconia Wrestlers Competing Across National Events in June

Across the month of June, we will have several kids competing in age group World Team Trials and National Duals tournaments as part of our MN National Dual Teams. So, mark your calendars for the first 3 weeks of June to watch them compete! All events will be streamed live on Flowrestling.org or the FloSports App.

6/3-6/4 Max McEnelly will be competing at the U20/Junior Freestyle World Team Trials in Geneva, Ohio. See the USAW Event website for more details and the schedule for this event. Max will be trying to make his 2nd straight age group level UWW World Team!

6/7-6/10 Carter Katherman and Vince Halliday, for the 2nd straight year, will be competing on Team Minnesota at the USAW 16U Freestyle/Greco National Duals in Loves Park, Illinois. See the USAW Event website for more details and the schedule for this event.

6/8-6/11 Becket Marsh will be making his debut with Team Minnesota at the USAW 14U/Schoolboy Freestyle/Greco National Duals in Oaks, Pennsylvania (outside Philadelphia). See the USAW Website for more details and the schedule for this event. 

6/14-6/17 Lincoln Vick and Maverick Mueller will be competing also with the MN National Team at the prestigious USAW 18U/Junior National Duals in Tulsa, Oklahoma. See the USAW Website for more details and the schedule for this event. 

Congrats to all our kids that competed in the NYWA post-season series, across Districts, Regionals and the State Championships! We had great participation this year and had a lot of fun hosting both the Individual and Team Regional Qualifiers as well. Thank you to all who helped to make it a super successful end of the year!

K-8 Individual Region 3 Results: Link

K-6 Team Region 3 Results: Link

K-6 Grade State Tournament Results: Our Waconia K-6 Team finished 4th out of 32 teams! Link 

K-6 State Individual:

• Joe Alger - Runner Up 5th/6th Grade 108#
• Henry Cook - 5th Place Kindergarten 55#
• Max Martin - 5th Place 1st/2nd Grade 90#
• Will Katherman - 6th Place 5th/6th Grade 84#
• Collin Meuwissen - 5th Place 5th/6th Grade 97#

Girls Division:

• Caroline Moyer - Champion K-3 56#
• Marissa Moyer - Runner Up K-3 45#

K-6 State Invite:

• Wil Chmielewski - Runner Up Kindergarten 45#
• Oliver Turek - Runner Up 1st/2nd Grade 50#
• Eddy Cook - 4th Place 3rd/4th Place 76# 
• Wyatt Chmielewski - 3rd Place 5th/6th 70#
• Will Beste - Runner Up 5th/6th 93#

7-8th Grade State Individual:

• Blake Miller - Runner Up 130#

7-8th Invite:

• Jacob Ess - Runner Up 125#
• Cooper Stejskal - 3rd Place 130#

Congrats to our youth wrestling team on a great performance at MNUSA! The K-6 dual team finished 4th overall in the team tournament. Also, the program sent 26 individual qualifiers/participants to the MNUSA Folkstyle State Tourney, allowing each kid to get valuable experience and test themselves against some of the state's best wrestlers.

Congratulations to the following individual place winners:

Girls

Marissa Moyer 6U 45# - State Champion

Breslyn Kirkpatrick 12U 60# - Runner Up 

Caroline Moyer 10U 57# - 3rd Place 

8U

Max Martin 85#- 2nd Place

Zander Holmlund 85# - 3rd Place

Oliver Turek 53# - 5th Place

10U 

Logan Kleinknight 60# - 6th Place

16U 

Vincent Halliday 220# - State Champion

Owen Vos 88# - 3rd Place

Ian Olson 100# - 3rd Place

Wes Hammarsten 132# - 5th Place

Sawyer Nemitz 170# - 6th Place

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) 

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!

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.