The Minnewaska Area wrestling team recently announced its season-ending awards.  The Lakers finished 16-9 overall this season, including a 2-3 mark in the WCC.

The Lakers were seeded eighth in the 10-team Section 5A Team Tourney and Minnewaska beat Ortonville in the opening round before falling to top-seeded KMS in the quarterfinals.

BBE went on to earn the section team title and advance to state where it went on to place third overall after losing to Caledonia in the semifinals (33-27) and to Howard Lake-WW in the third-place match (32-30).

Miles Wildman and Chase Smith both earned state berths for the Lakers with Wildman going 3-2 at state to place fifth at 106 pounds and Smith was 2-3 to place sixth at 120 pounds in his second-straight state tournament.

•  Earning All-Conference season for the Lakers were Wildman and Smith, while senior Nick Ankeny was named to the honorable mention team.

Ankeny, one of three senior letterwinners for Minnewaska Area this winter, ended his career with a 111-45 record and 44 pins.  The other seniors were Chase Boelke (63-49 career record) and Xander Johnson.

•  Ankeny was also selected as the MVP of this year’s team, while Smith and Wildman earned the Most Dedicated award, Myles Reichmann earned the Most Improved honor, Mason Schiffler and Eric Bowen were named co-winners of the Adversity award, Jayce Kovarik won the Character award, Noah Jensen was named the Rookie of the Year, Garrett Jungclaus won the Heart and Guts honor, Xander Johnson and Chase Boelke were co-winners of the Mr. Clutch award, and recognized as captains for 2022-23 were Ankeny, Johnson and Boelke.

•  In JV awards, Landon Schiffler earned the Rookie of the Year award and Cole Kittelson and Grady Braaten won the Hearts and Guts honor.

Earning the 9th grade league MVP award was Braylen Scharmer.

•  Chase Smith will go into his junior year with an unofficial overall record of 81-32, while also with over 50 career wins are Mason Schiffler (71-61) and Wildman (54-13).

Smith and Boelke led the Lakers this year with 19 pins each, while Reichmann, Johnson and Jensen each had 15 pins, and Wildman and Ankeny both had 13.

Named to the All-Academic team (cumulative g.p.a. of 3.4 or better) were:  Miles Wildman (3.89), Landon Schiffler (3.85), Chase Smith (3.865), Nick Ankeny (3.779), Jayce Kovarik (3.817), Myles Reichmann (4.042), Cole Kittelson (3.55), Jude Bailey (3.426), Alex Adams (3.4) and Riley Spindler (3.7).

Earning letters were seniors Nick Ankeny, Xander Johnson and Chase Boelke; juniors Garrett Jungclaus, Mason Schiffler, Jayce Kovarik, Nathan Dell, Myles Reichmann and Cole Kittelson; sophomores Chase Smith and Noah Jensen; 9th-graders Braylen Scharmer and Eric Bowen; 8th-graders Austin Schuler, Miles Wildman and Landon Schiffler; and 7th-graders Alex Adams, Jude Bailey, Isaiah Rosario and Zayden Johnson.

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