Willy Graham is headed to state—again. The Stanley-Boyd junior placed second at Ladysmith Sectionals Saturday, Feb. 22, punching his ticket to state this Thursday. Now with a 44-6 record, Graham won by fall over Cameron Wiese of Cameron in the quarterfinal with a fall time of 0:34, then by fall over Drew Gage (44-6) of Stratford in the semifinal with a fall time of 3:07. Graham then advanced to the second place match where he won by no contest over Drew Gage of Stratford and on to the first place match, where he lost by fall to Zach Hellendrung (39-7) of Boyceville. Graham scored 18.0 team points en route to earning a state berth this weekend.
Also headed to state from Stanley-Boyd, Aaron Sturm placed third in the 165 pound weight class and scored nine team points, winning the third place match at sectionals by major decision 15-3 over Dylan Laberee (21-15) of Glenwood City. Dredyn Arneson (24-19) made it to the Consolation Semifinal in the 190 pound weight class at Ladysmith, losing by fall to Lucas Stahnke (27-12) of Edgar.
As for girls results at Ladysmith, the Feb. 21 sectional saw Nevaeh Walters (17-15) place fourth in the 138 pound weight class, losing the third place match to Kaylynn Allen (41-11) of Merrill. Lillian Fitzl (25-9) lost the championship bracket by fall to Anna Krizan (31-9) of Ladysmith, with a fall time of 3:44. Sierra Marten (16-17) lost by fall to Lauren Nee (24-6) of St. Croix Falls with a fall time of 4:30. Orioles Head Coach Jake Fitzsimmons shared thoughts after the results were in.
“The whole team really wrestled well,” he said. “For the girls I felt like they wrestled the best matches of their season at the sectional tournament. Nevaeh took 4th and was two spots from qualifying. Sierra, Lillian, and Nevaeh are all excited to try and take the next step and be state qualifiers next year. On the boys side Dredyn wrestled two of the kids that qualified and came up short in his first sectional tournament. Willy dominated in his first two matches, but lost a close match to take second. Willy is the 3 seed at state and will have a bye in round 1. Aaron Sturm wrestled outstanding. He beat two kids that had beat him at regionals last week. He is an extremely coachable kid and stuck to the game plan all day. I worked with him on some specific things that he need to focus on all week in practice and he executed! I have been coaching Aaron and Willy since sixth grade as their middle school coach and now as their high school coach and excited to coach them down at State in the Kohl Center.”
The Kohl Center opens for competition Thursday, Feb. 27, with doors open at 1 p.m. and Division 3 preliminaries at 6 p.m.