Waconia Wrestling

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!

Waconia Wrestling Club will be hosting its annual Ken Bach Memorial Waconia Open & MNUSA Qualifier Individual tournament this weekend on Sunday, January 29th. Similar to last year, all registration must be done online through trackwrestling.com and is only available through PRE-REGISTRATION due by Saturday, January 28th @ 8pm.

**NOTE: We have a brand new GIRLS ONLY division this year. No qualification points will be available for this division, as it will just be for fun. But, Girls in 8U, 10U, 12U age groups can participate in the co-ed divisions earlier in the day (to earn state or regional qualification points) AND double register (again) for the Girls Only division (for fun). Girls in the 6U or 14U age groups must choose the co-ed division or Girls only to register. Depending on turnout, girls will be matched based on age group & weight class as close as possible. The Girls division will NOT achieve qualification points for MNUSA Regionals. 

Tournament Flyer: Waconia-Wrestling-Club-MNUSA-Folkstyle-Qualifier-2023

Registration Link: Registration

Questions? Email questions/inquiries to Jeff Katherman at jdkatherman@gmail.com.

On July 31st, 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!

After winning the UWW U17 Team Trials for Team USA back in May, Max McEnelly will be competing in Rome, Italy at the UWW U17 World Freestyle Championships at 92kg (~202lbs).

Checkout the following links below for how to stay updated on the event and for the event schedule. Max is set to begin competing at 4:30am cst time on Saturday, 7/30, then Semifinals will continue at 10:00am cst. The medal round will begin on 11am cst on Sunday, 7/31. 

UWW U17 Championships Event Page: https://uww.org/event/world-championships-58?section=schedule

UWW U17 Worlds Coverage: https://www.flowrestling.org/events/7215595-2022-u17-world-championships/news

UWW U17 92kg Bracket: https://uww.org/arena/weight-category/c1b8a05f-0e6c-11ed-a5f5-08002745f808/bracket.pdf

Livestream: https://www.flowrestling.org/events/7215595

Waconia Wrestling will have 3 wrestlers this year competing at the prestigious USAW 16U/Junior Freestyle/Greco Nationals in Fargo, marking the most wrestlers Waconia has ever sent to Fargo in any year!  

Lincoln Vick will compete in the Junior Freestyle bracket at 138#. Lincoln was the MNUSA State Champion in Freestyle at 132# and also competed at USAW Northern Plains Regionals in Freestyle. This will be Lincoln's 2nd trip to Fargo Nationals. Lincoln will compete beginning on July 17-19th.

Carter Katherman will compete in the 16U Greco bracket at 120#. Carter finshed 4th place in Greco at USAW Northern Plains Regionals and placed 5th in Greco and 4th in Freestyle at the MNUSA Freestyle/Greco State Tournament. Carter also competed earlier in the summer at the 16U National Duals in both Freestyle/Greco for Team Minnesota. This will be Carter's first trip to Fargo Nationals. Carter will be competing July 20-21st.

Bradee Dwinell will compete in the Junior Greco bracket at 145#. Bradee competed in both styles at both MNUSA State placing 4th in Freestyle and 3rd in Greco. Bradee also competed in both styles at USAW Northern Plains Regionals. This will be Bradee's first trip to Fargo Nationals. Bradee will be competing on July 21-22nd.

Team Minnesota - Fargo Roster: https://theguillotine.com/2022/07/minnesotas-fargo-rosters-released/

Flowrestling Fargo Nationals Coverage: https://www.flowrestling.org/events/7417656-2022-usmcusaw-junior-and-cadet-national-championships/news

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: Link 

• Team 14th out of 32 Teams

State Individual:

• Max Martin - Runner Up Kindergarten 105#
• Logan Kleinknight - Runner Up 1st/2nd Grade 54#
• Lincoln Kleinknight - 5th Place 3rd/4th Grade 76#
• Michael Reiner - 5th Place 3rd/4th Grade 80#
• Clayton Johnson - 5th Place 3rd/4th Grade 155#

Girls Division:

• Caroline Moyer - Champion 1st/2nd Grade 50#

State Invite:

• Will Koosmann - 2nd Place 3-4th Grade 72#
• Beau Bieniek - 3rd Place 3-4th Grade 76#
• Will Katherman - 4th Place 5-6th Grade 80#
• Adam Torres - 3rd Place 5-6th Grade 80#
• Will Beste - 3rd Place 5-6th Grade 84#
• Joe Alger - 3rd Place 5-6th Grade 93#
• Jacob Ess - 4th Place 5-6th Grade 102#

By the numbers - 7-8th Grade:

• Region 3 Team Champions! 
• Team State: 7th out of 32 Teams (Link) (wins over GMLOS, Foley, United, losses to Staples-Motley & Pine Island)

7-8th Grade State Individual:

• Ian Olson - Runner Up 85#
• Vincent Halliday- 3rd Place

Invite:

• Mitchell Moyer -4th Place 7-8th 85#

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 23 individual qualifiers 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

Caroline Moyer 8U 50# - State Champion 

Breslyn Kirkpatrick 10U 60# - State Champion (now 2x!)

6U & 8U

Jacob Reiner 6U 55# - Runner Up

Logan Kleinknight 8U 55# - 3rd Place

10U 

Lincoln Kleinknight 10U 77# - Runner Up

Michael Reiner 10U 77# - 6th Place

14U

Aiden Meuwissen 14U 136# - State Champion (now 2x!)

Beckett Marsh 14U 77# - 5th Place

16U 

Vincent Halliday 220# - Runner Up

Ian Olson 88# - 3rd Place

Sawyer Nemitz 170# - 3rd Place

Platinum Golf Sponsors 2022

Checkout our Waconia Wrestling YouTube Channel for some great content and features of our youth and 7-12th grade program wrestlers.

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