The Minnewaska Area wrestling team, coached by Chip Rankin, got the new season underway, Friday at the Big Lake Invitational.  The Lakers are coming off a 16-9 season from a year ago, a season which included a 2-3 mark in the WCC. 

During the Big Lake Invitational, the Lakers placed fifth as a team out of seven schools and Miles Wildman earned the lone title with Chase Smith placing second.

Seniors lost to graduation from last year’s team are Nick Ankeny (37-5 record last year), Xander Johnson (22-13) and Chase Boelke (29-13).  In addition, junior Noah Jensen had surgery this past summer and will miss the season after going 26-15 last winter and senior Mason Schiffler decided not to go out for wrestling after going 18-11 last year.

“I’m hoping that we’ll be close to last year’s record, possibly a 60 percent winning percentage, but it will definitely hurt us losing the seniors, along with Noah and Mason; they won a lot of matches for us last year,” coach Chip Rankin said.

•  Two big changes for wrestling this year are the change from 14 weights to 13 and the switch from Section 5A to Section 8AA.

This year, high school wrestlers will use 13 weight classes as follows — 107, 114, 121, 127, 133, 139, 145, 152, 160, 172, 189, 215 and 285.  The old system used 14 weight classes; 106, 113, 120, 126, 132, 138, 145, 152, 160, 170, 182, 195, 220 and 285.

There are still nine weight classes from 160 pounds down, but the new system basically takes out one of the five heaviest weight classes.  “The 13 weight classes does shake things up a bit and we really haven’t seen many of the teams in 8AA or AA in general; we’ll get a better idea of how things look in early January,” coach Rankin said.

Minnewaska Area is set to host a quadrangular this Thursday, which also includes BBE, Border West and United.

Big Lake Invitational

The Lakers placed fifth of seven schools at the Big Lake Invitational, Friday.  Pierz won the team title with 207 points, followed by KMS with 183 and Big Lake with 173.5 points, while the Lakers were fifth with 106.

Earning the lone first for the Laker team was Miles Wildman, a ninth-grader who went 3-0 to claim the 127-pound title.  He beat Link Toops of Pierz in the finals, 10-6.

Earning second was Chase Smith, a junior who went 1-1 at 133 pounds, losing 6-0 to KMS’ Trey Gunderson in the finals.

The Lakers also had one third by Landon Schiffler, who went 3-1 at 107 pounds to claim third place.  Earning fourths were Isaiah Rosario at 139 pounds, Nathan Dell at 152 and Myles Reichmann at 189 pounds, while Jude Bailey was fifth at 133, Braylen Scharmer was fifth at 160 pounds and Cole Kittelson added a sixth at 172.  The Lakers did not have wrestlers at three of the 13 weight classes.

•  Team United (Montevideo, LQP Valley and Dawson-Boyd) won last year’s WCC title with a 5-0 league mark, followed by WCA-Ashby-B/E (5-1), Benson (4-2), Morris Area (3-3), Minnewaska Area (2-3), Sauk Centre-Melrose (1-5) and BOLD-BLHS (0-6).

“I would guess United and WCA are the favorites with us likely No. 3 behind them,” Rank said.

•  “We have pretty decent numbers; the most we’ve had in my time and likely in the last 15 years, which is good,” coach Rankin said.

Highlighting last year’s season for the Lakers were state berths by Chase Smith and Miles Wildman.  Wildman went 3-2 at state to place fifth at 106 pounds, while Smith was 2-3 to earn sixth at 120 pounds.  Smith also qualified to state the previous season with Jacob Blair, going 2-2.

at Big Lake Invitational

Team scoring

(1) Pierz 207  (2) KMS 183  (3) Big Lake 173.5  (4) Amery 152  (5) Minnewaska 106  (6) Sartell 98  (7) Pine City Area 72

Laker individual results:

107:  Landon Schiffler 3-1 (third)

127:  Miles Wildman 3-0 (first)

133:  Chase Smith 1-1 (second)

133:  Jude Bailey 1-2 (fifth)

139:  Isaiah Rosario 2-2 (fourth)

152:  Nathan Dell 1-2 (fourth)

160:  Braylen Scharmer 2-2 (fifth)

172:  Cole Kittelson 1-3 (sixth)

189:  Myles Reichmann 2-2 (fourth)

215:  Zayden Johnson 0-2

285:  Eric Bowen 0-2