With four wins in its final four regular season matches last week, the Becker Bulldog wrestling team finished the regular season with a school record number of wins against just one loss.
“With the two wins Friday night, we finished the regular season 26-1,” said Co-head Coach Matt Aho. “That’s the most wins in a season in the program’s history.”
Vikings
Last Thursday night, Becker traveled to North Branch to take on the Vikings, as well as the Zimmerman Thunder. The Bulldogs were again dominant, winning 25 of a total of 28 individual matches in the two contests.
In the opening win against North Branch, Becker picked up seven forfeits en route to the 67-9 victory: Landen Kujawa (113), Drew May (120), Ryan Boecker (126), Ethan Duncombe (132), Adam Jurek (152), Tyson Ricker (182) and Caden DeWall (195).
Kaden Nicolas (106) won a major decision in the opening match and Owen Angell (138) followed that with a first period pin of his opponent. Dylan Weber (170) and Dylan Kolby (285) rounded out the Becker win by scoring falls over their opponent. All together, it gave Becker its second consecutive conference title and third overall in school history (see related story).
“With the win against North Branch, we clinched the Mississippi 8 Conference title for the second year in a row,” said Aho. “Being conference champs is a big goal for us every year.”
Becker won the conference in dominant fashion, with the only close match being an early season squeaker against Big Lake. From there, it was a bunch of lopsided victories as Becker consistently fielded a full lineup, with talent from top to bottom.
Thunder
In the nightcap, Becker picked up a 78-3 win over Zimmerman by scoring forfeit wins in the first seven matches. Becker’s lone loss of the match came at 152 pounds, but then the team picked up another pair of forfeit victories before Ricker (182) and DeWall (195) pinned their opponents. The final two individual matches were also forfeit wins for the Bulldogs.
Record Set
Friday night, Becker traveled to Delano to take on the Tigers, as well as the BBE Jaguars. Becker came out on top of both matches to push its season record to 26-1.
“We finished out the regular season with two good wins,” added Aho. “BBE is the number two ranked team in Class A, so that win is good motivation for us moving into sections next week.”
Both opponents gave the Bulldogs some good matches, despite the large margins of victory.
Tigers
Becker started out the night with a 51-15 win over Delano, but the Bulldogs had to work for the victory and only pickup up forfeit wins at 120 (May) and 145 (Paulson).
“We had some good matchups tonight,” said Aho. “We had a few good wins individually as well.”
Picking up pins for the Bulldogs were Nicolas (106), Duncombe (132), DeWall (195) and Brayden Weber (220).
Kujawa scored a decision win at 113, as did Angell (138), Doucette (152) and D. Weber (182). Bryce Kuschel bumped up a weight class and picked up a nice win at 285 for the Bulldogs.
Doucette also hit a milestone in recording his 50th career win.
Jaguars
In the second match of the night, the BBE Jaguars gave the Bulldogs a full 14 matches and the result was a hard fought, 45-18 win.
Nicolas (decision) and Kujawa (fall), the superbly talented eighth grade classmates, started Becker off with a 9-0 lead, but Becker would find itself down 9-18 after the 138 pound weight class.
Paulson scored a decision at 145 and Doucette picked up a big fall at 152 to tie the match at 18 apiece. From there, it was all Bulldogs with Jurek (160), B. Weber (220) and Kolby (285) scoring decision victories, while Kylen Rish (170), Ricker (182) and DeWall (195) pinned their opponents to stretch the final score to a comfortable margin.
Sections
Becker received the #2 seed in the section and hosted the first round Wednesday evening. Number 3 seed Big Lake wrestled #6 ROCORI at 6 p.m., with the Bulldogs facing the winner at 7:30 p.m.
The winner of that match advanced to the section finals on Saturday, March 13 at ROCORI.
Look for complete details in next week’s Patriot.
