The Becker wrestling team continues to show great team balance and depth, as they piled up several wins over the past week to improve to 20-1 on the season.
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Last Tuesday, the Bulldogs ripped off a 51-18 victory over the New London-Spicer Wildcats in the opening match of a triangular.
Five Bulldogs picked up pins in the match, including Owen Angell (138), Lukas Paulson (145), Kylen Rish (170), Tyson Ricker (182) and Caden DeWall (220). It was Paulson’s 75th career pin for the Bulldogs.
Scott West
In the second match of the Tri, Becker wrestled strong against a very talented Scott West team and came away with a 37-22 win.
Kaden Nicolas opened with a 20-4 technical fall over his opponent and Ryan Boecker was the next victorious Bulldog with a pin at 126. However, the team went 2-4 in the next six matches, with the Bulldog wins going to Paulson (145) and Mason Doucette (152), and Becker trailed 18-22 going into the 182 pound match. Fortunately for the Bulldogs, the top weights again came through and Becker would finish 4-0 to secure the win. Both DeWall and Bryce Kuschel picked up pins for the Bulldogs in the upper weights.
Tigers
Last Thursday, the Bulldogs took on conference foe Princeton and had to wrestle a complete match for the win, edging their M8 Conference foe, 40-32.
“Princeton is a good team and they have several wrestlers highly ranked in the state,” said Coach Matt Aho. “We had to overcome some adversity during the dual and not panic — figuring out how to win was a good thing as we move toward the postseason.”
Kaden Nicolas started things off for Becker with second period pin at 106, but the Bulldogs would lose the next five matches to trail 6-27 heading into the 145 pound match. Paulson then picked up a major decision to start the Becker comeback, which included an Adam Jurek fall at 152 and a close 1-0 decision by Ricker at 170. However, the Bulldogs still trailed 19-33 going into the 182 pound match before falls by Rish (182) and DeWall (195) brought the score to 31-33. From there, Kuschel (decision at 220) and Dylan Kolby (fall at 285) sealed the win.
“We knew it was going to be close and one thing I told our team was that all they needed to do is worry about their match and the team score would take care of itself,” added Aho. “Plus, we just could not lose because Coach Zimmer is now on a 29 year win streak against Princeton and the guys did not want that to end this year.”
As it turned out, it was just enough motivation to push the Bulldogs to remain unbeaten at 5-0 in the Mississippi 8 Conference this season.
Sabres
Tuesday night, Becker completely dominated the Sartell Sabres, winning 61-13 behind three forfeit wins and six pins.
Becker’s youngsters started off the match the right way, as eighth graders Kaden Nicolas (forfeit 106) and Issac Daluge (decision 113) gave the Bulldogs an early 9-0 lead. The match then became a back and forth affair until Paulson’s pin at 145 pounds, as Becker would lose just one weight class the rest of the way. Jurek, Rish, Ricker, DeWall and Brayden Weber each picked up pins for the Bulldogs.
With the win, Becker eclipsed the 20 win mark for the second consecutive year.
