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Princeton 37, Chisago Lakes 27

The Wildcat wrestling team trailed by just one point, 25-24, going into the last three individual matches of the evening in the opening round of the Section 7AA team playoffs against Princeton last Tuesday, February 17 at Hinckley. But Princeton pinned two of the last three Wildcat wrestlers to come away with a 37-27 win and knock the Wildcats out of the team section playoffs.

The Wildcats lost close matches at 125 pounds and 152 pounds. "If we had won those two matches, it would have made the difference," said Wildcat head coach Shawn Frederixon. "We would have come out on top."

In last year's ninth-grade state tournament, Princeton's Karl Eichinger edged out the Wildcats' Jake Nase. Nase took advantage of the rematch opportunity last Tuesday. Nase managed an escape in the second period to take a 1-0 lead. Nase started on top in the third period and was able to keep Eichinger down for the whole period to get the 1-0 win. The win was the thirtieth of Nase's career.

Nick Meyer (285), subbing for the injured Dylan Hoyt, held off the number two ranked heavyweight in the state, Billy Frank, until he was pinned midway through the second period. Hoyt should be recovered from his injury in time to wrestle in this weekend's individual section tournament.

The Wildcats are looking forward to this weekend's section tournament, to be held this Friday and Saturday at Cloquet. "We don't have anyone with state tournament experience back," said Frederixon. "But we've got a lot of guys who wrestle hard and want to break through. We might have a couple of number two seeds for the tournament, and we should have a bunch of number three and number four seeds. It should be a lot of fun." Section seedings were determined last night, too late to be published in this week's edition of the Chisago County Press.

Individual Results

103 - Quade Zupko won by fall

112 - Bobby Sontag won by tech, fall

119 - Pao Thao won by maj. dec.

125 - Tyler McConville lost by dec.

130 - Tyler Heckel lost by fall

135 - Forfeit

140 - Ben Hinderman lost by maj. dec.

145 - Travis Kammerer won by tech. fall

152 - Riley Myers lost by dec.

160 - Derek Silbernagel lost by dec.

171 - Clay Olson won by maj. dec.

189 - Vince Virga lost by fall

215 - Jake Nase won by dec.

285 - Nick Meyer lost by fall

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