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Four Wildcats are headed to the 2024 State Wrestling Tournament from Section 4AA this weekend at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, with matches in the individual portion of the tournament taking place on Friday and Saturday.  Junior Logan Bender, seeded number one in the section at 285 pounds, pinned King-General Thompson of South St. Paul at 1:28 to become section champion and earned a trip to state.  This will be the third trip to the state tournament for Bender, who finished sixth at 195 pounds at state last year.  Junior Connor Frederixon (215), who went to state at 220 pounds last year, finished second to earn his second trip to the Excel.  And senior Michael Amos (152) and sophomore Conner Aspenson (107) each finished second in their respective weight classes to punch their tickets to state for the first time.

The individual portion of the tournament will start at 9 a.m. on Friday, with Class AA bouts starting sometime after 10 a.m.  Aspenson (23-16) will open the tournament against freshman Sully Marx of Watertown Mayer/ Mayer Lutheran (22-4), who comes from Section 2AA.  The first opponent for Amos (22-9) will be senior Carson Byer of Perham (31-12), from Section 8AA.  First up for Frederixon (32-5) is junior Caleb Johnson of Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton (38-7), from Section 8AA.  And Bender (33-1) will face off against junior Isaac Frericks of Sauk Centre/Melrose (38-12), from Section 8AA, to open the tournament.  Brackets will be updated regularly at trackwrestling.com

Bender, ranked fourth in the state and the top seed in the section tournament, needed less than three minutes on the mat to dispatch all three of his opponents.  In the quarterfinals, he pinned Marcus Tupy of St. Paul Highland Park in 24 seconds.  The semifinal match saw Bender pin Devionte Evans of St. Paul Harding fall to Bender at 1:03.  And in the championship match, it took Bender just a bit longer.  He pinned King-General Thompson of South St. Paul at 1:28 to claim the section championship.

Aspenson took the long way to earn his first trip to state.  He pinned Adrian Trziok of North at 3:09 to win his quarterfinal match.  But Aspenson lost to Turner Ross of Simley by pin in 52 seconds in the semifinals, sending Aspenson to the wrestlebacks.  Aspenson got back on the winning track in his next match, pinning Ian Vang of St. Paul Highland Park in 56 seconds, earning the right to move on to the third-place match.  In the third-place match, Aspenson pinned crowd favorite Briana Martinez of South St. Paul just six seconds before the end of the first period to claim third place.  And since Ross, the opponent he lost to earlier, won the championship match, Aspenson got the opportunity to wrestle a True Second match for a chance to go to state.  The fourth-seeded Aspenson crushed second-seeded Las Way Wan of the St. Paul Technology Magnet School, needing just 3:14 to finish off a 15-0 technical fall, and Aspenson was going to state.

Amos opened the tournament by dispatching Bud Brondum of Cretin-Derham Hall in just 31 seconds.  In his semifinal match, he won by a 13-1 major decision over Isaac Roberts of St. Paul Highland Park.  In the championship match, Amos faced Cash Raymonf of Simley, who is ranked number one in the state in Class AA at 152 pounds.  Amos gave Raymond more than he bargained for, with Amos eventually losing by a 6-3 decision.  And Amos did not have to wrestle a True Second match, since he had already defeated the third-place winner, Isaac Roberts, earlier in the day.  The finish got Amos to state in his last opportunity to get there.

Frederixon, ranked sixth in the state and the top section seed at 215, won by a 16-0 technical fall in 3:06 over Oscar Sierra-Ochoa of St Paul Humboldt-Open World Learning.  In the semifinals,  Frederixon pinned Parker David of Simley with 23 seconds left in their bout, advancing to the championship match against ninth-ranked and second-seeded Andrew Bonk of South St. Paul.  Bonk’s takedown was the difference maker in the match, as he won 3-1 over Frederixon.  Frederixon did not have to wrestle a True Second match, since he had already defeated the third-place winner, Parker Davis, earlier in the day.  Frederixon was on his way to state.

Junior Braxton Bender-Ehlke (145) pinned Oskar Bowman of Cretin-Derham Hall right near the end of the second period in the third-place match.  But since Bender-Ehlke has already lost to Andrew Schwab of South St. Paul, who was in second place after losing the championship match, there was no True Second match, leaving Bender-Ehlke just short of his first trip to state.  Sam Bird (127) finished fifth and Lucas Yang (121) came in sixth to make it to the winner’s podium.  In all, seven Wildcats made it on to the podium.

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