New Richmond wrestlers open season with impressive win at Prescott

Talk about it

A very young New Richmond wrestling lineup was able to pull off an impressive win in the Tigers’ Middle Border Conference opening dual match last Thursday.

With one senior in the lineup, the Tigers went to Prescott and scored a 48-6 victory.

Abe Anderson was the only senior in the Tiger lineup and he wrestled the opening match. He faced Prescott’s Troy Urman, who was a champion in the Ellsworth Invitational on Saturday. Anderson was able to defeat Urman 5-0.

Freshman Caleb Neumann was next up for the Tigers and he added to the team’s strong start, defeating Prescott senior Austin Tulip 8-2.

The momentum kept building. Austin Anderson, one of several Tigers who wrestled up a weight class from their normal weight, was able to win in overtime. Michael Steel, Connor Earley and Gage Manske followed with pins.

At 106 pounds, Seth Leavens scored a 6-2 win in his first varsity match. Junior Shane Blackman earned a pin at 126 pounds, raising the lead to 48-0. It wasn’t until the final two matches that Prescott got its wins, both by narrow decisions.

Tiger coach Mark Neumann had to do some lineup juggling for this match. There are 32 wrestlers on the Tiger roster, but 11 aren’t available to start the season.

Neumann said he was pleased that the young Tiger lineup was able to prevail in so many of the close matches in the dual meet. The Tigers had four wrestlers in the lineup Thursday and three of them notched wins.

On Saturday the young Tigers got a taste of some top opposition when they wrestled in the Lakeville (Minn.) Invitational. The Tigers placed fourth among the 14 teams in the tournament. Hudson was the tournament champion.

“Hudson will have a great team this year,” Neumann predicted.

New Richmond’s top finishes in the tournament were a pair of second place efforts from Blackman and Abe Anderson.

“Shane and Abe both beat studs in the semis and they lost close matches in the finals to highly-ranked kids,” Neumann said.

Dylan Dowd, Derek Dowd and Leavens all placed fourth and Austin Anderson took sixth place.

New Richmond’s wrestlers will compete this Saturday in a large tournament in Wisconsin Dells.

Tags: sports, tigers, wrestling, prep