Dec. 8, 2008

I can’t even believe the season is halfway over already! It’s easy to tell we are all enjoying the season so much because it is flying by so fast. We’ve had some seasons in the past that I felt exhausted by the end of the first semester, and our wrestlers probably did too. This year it’s completely different. I’ve learned so much from those “long seasons” and am committed to improving as a coach each year to read my student-athletes better.

The balanced approach we’ve taken thus far has kept the atmosphere light, positive and fun, yet ultimately much more productive. Our team members are enjoying themselves so much this year too. In the past we did some training methods that were probably “over the top” and scared kids away early in the season. I was stupid to think that we needed to eliminate the “dead weight." I’ve learned that many of these young men need time to adjust and adapt to collegiate wrestling. Of course they are also learning to balance living on their own, college academics, personal freedom and the responsibility that comes with it. Very few of them just come in “ready to go." Rather than chasing them away, we’ve worked hard to help them adjust to the rigors of being a student-athlete and it’s paying off tremendously.

Our team is doing some cross training this week and balancing some time in the wrestling room with completing their final exams, finishing papers, projects, etc. This is a big week for us academically and some strong performances in the classroom will propel our team into the Top 20 NCAA Scholar Wrestling Teams.

I met individually with all of the guys this week to do a mid-season evaluation. This has been very enlightening and enjoyable. We use this time to open up the lines of communication between the coaches and student-athletes and determine what needs to happen in the second semester for us to reach our competitive goals. Our guys have shared many positive comments about the camaraderie they feel among their teammates and the coaching staff. It’s great to have such a positive relationship with the kids that they can share whatever is on their mind. Effective communication is a critical skill in becoming a successful person beyond their college years. and meeting like this is a great opportunity to develop that skill.

Now we are off for a short break. We’ll have a couple guys down at the Midlands Invitational after Christmas with the majority of our team competing next at the always tough Cornell College Invitational the first weekend in January.

I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thanks for reading.

Dec. 4, 2008

This week was a little more rough than the past. We took a pretty good beating from UW-Stevens Point on Tuesday (Dec. 2) night.

They are a perennial Top 10 program year in and year out on the national level so it was a good barometer for us. It was quite obvious that we are not a Top 10 program just yet. But as this group of guys has done all season, we went right back into the practice room to learn and improve from the meet.

This is something that is printed in our team handbook and expected after all competition during the regular season. Regardless of whether we win or lose, we learn and improve from every opportunity to compete so we are at our best by the end of the season.

I was proud of my guys the way they came “back to work” the next day. I had a handful of guys chomping at the bit to watch their film and work on their mistakes. We learned a lot from this dual and I know it’s only going to make us a better team in the long run.

We had a couple of additions to the team this week now that football is complete. “Insane Duane” Hartkopf and Eric “House” Allen completed their football duties and we are blessed to have them in the room. It’s two more quality training partners and then some. These two guys have a boatload of talent, a strong work ethic and I expect good things from them once they get back into “wrestling shape."

I’m not sure how it is at other universities but Pat Cerroni (UW-Oshkosh head football coach) and I have a fantastic working relationship regarding student-athletes who want to participate in both football and wrestling. This is a very unique opportunity for these young men to realize many of their goals simultaneously throughout their college years. You only live once and being able to wrestle AND play football will be a great accomplishment for these two young men, as well as future Titans who choose to do the same.

We complete our competition for the semester on Saturday (Dec. 6) at the MSOE Invitational. It will be great to see how the guys respond from Tuesday night. We’ll see some different competition again with teams from Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, etc.. I am looking forward to seeing Lakeland College at this meet as well. They always “go hard” are very well coached by Pete Rogers and his staff. So it should be a good “final exam” for the semester.

Thanks for keeping up with the Titans. I appreciate the positive feedback I’ve received and am glad you enjoy these updates. Thanks for reading.

Nov. 18, 2008

We feel good about what took place last week.

We accomplished something that hasn’t happened in years past. In a dual meet with Grand View University (Iowa), we lost the first four matches and were down 17-0. But, a much improved Aaron Konitzer got us on the board at 157 with a hard fought victory which seemed to pump life into the rest of the guys.

“Dangerous” James Dederich blew his match wide open with a 12-2 major decision. This was a big improvement from last week for him to build his lead and continue attacking throughout the match. Eli Felts did was he does, by grinding the entire time and winning with a very late takedown in the third period to win 7-6. Sam Engelland was down in the third period but dug deep to tie the score and then fired off a great shot in overtime winning a tough scramble and earning a 6-4 victory.

This was a big boost for freshman Matt Halpert who gutted out another hard fought 3-2 victory putting the dual meet score at 16-17 heading into the heavyweight match. In a “pressure cooker” situation, Jason Laplante stepped up BIG and stuck his opponent for a crazy comeback dual meet win.

It was very intense and exciting dual meet to be in. Grand View had some tough kids and it was very rewarding for a coach to see his athletes KEEP FIGHTING FOR THE TEAM and grind out a dual meet win.

The next day we competed in the Knox College Invitational with about 14 other teams. It was a solid tournament with teams like University of Dubuque, Simpson College, UW-Platteville, Grand View University, etc. The Titans left with eight place winners total, including three finalists.

The story of that meet was Mike “Crazy Train” Kratz coming “back from the dead” to win the tournament at 197. Mike is 27 years old and was out of wrestling for six years prior to a late season return last year to fill in for us as an undersized heavyweight. Mike was a team player last year giving up a lot of size but fighting admirably. He has gotten his weight down to a more natural 197 and has greatly improved.

For those that don’t know Mike, he was an undefeated State Champion in 2000 and earned multiple All-American honors in Fargo during his high school career. But a long lay off from wrestling is going to slow anybody down and it has taken him a while to get the rust off. I was happy to see Mike moving the way he did and finishing the tournament with a fall in the finals.

This week we have an always tough WIAC dual at home against UW-Platteville. They have some real quality kids and are well coached so it will be a true test for where we stand.

But I am loving the attitude our team has toward training and improving from week to week. We had a great workout on Monday to learn and improve from the past weekend competition and on Wednesday we’ll see how much of that took place.

GO TITANS!

Nov. 12, 2008

The dual meet at the WWCA clinic against Harper College went fairly well for us. We won the dual 26-16 so it was nice to leave the KI Convention Center being 1-0.

The guys competed pretty strong. I liked where we were at from a conditioning standpoint, our hand-fighting, and top work. It was great to see a “real match” though because it opened my eyes to some key positions that we need to review. Sometimes in a close match a competitor will suffer some “reversion”. This is where you revert back to some old habits that may or may not be successful. We preach high-percentage low risk type wrestling. You’ll often hear me saying in matches “STAY SOLID”. We got beat in some positions this weekend by “reversion” and moving away from solid wrestling. But overall I was pleased. The team had a lot of fight and executed pressure wrestling which is exactly what we want.

Sam Engelland got the dual started for us at 184 just the way we expected. He hit a nice high crotch to a double in the first period and another takedown in the second period before running his opponent over with an arm bar for the fall.

Jason Laplante stayed after his guy as well earning two takedowns before getting “the press” at heavyweight.

Anytime we’re wrestling a dual meet, we need to have guys wrestling to constantly score, build smart leads, and work for the fall. Sam and Jason carried a lot of weight in this dual meet by sticking their guys. A couple other guys who continued to wrestle with the scoring mind set regardless of the time/score were Morgan Sickinger and Eli Felts.

Morgan wrestled tough at 141 with a steady grind on top with a determination to continue scoring for an 11-0 major decision. Team Captain Eli Felts really got after it to close the dual out, constantly looking to build his lead with 5 takedowns, some near fall and riding time for a 15-2 victory. This was exactly the type of leadership we expect from our captain and he came through.

This week we travel down to Galesburg, Illinois for a Friday night dual against Grand View College and then the Knox Invite on Saturday. This is new territory for us so I’m excited to see how the weekend unfolds. GVC is a brand new NAIA school. I have no idea what their line up is like but being a scholarship school, they will likely have quality kids and we’ll have to step it up. The tournament on Saturday should be another good change of pace. We’ll see a lot of different schools here ranging from Iowa Conference schools, Illinois Schools, some Division 2, NAIA, etc.

Looking forward to a great week of training in preparation for our road trip. Thanks for reading.

Nov. 4, 2008

We concluded the pre-season with a great crowd at Kolf Sports Center for our Black and Gold Meet. It was awesome to see so many people there just to watch wrestle offs. Hopefully that is an indication of good things to come for the crowds at our home dual meets! Those of you who were in attendance ... THANKS!

There were some great matches that took place. It was nice to see guys having to earn their spot and fighting tooth and nail to do so. At 125, Chad Leviner outlasted Carl Deluca in a match that went through four overtimes! He won the match after the second set of 30 second tie-breakers, by virtue of his 8 seconds of riding time advantage. These two had some great flurries and will continue to battle throughout the season for the spot at 125, along with a very tough Zach Mueller.

At 133, Kyle Kleuskens moved ahead of Nate Stetzer in the third period to earn the spot. “KK” has spent the past season off from competitive wrestling with a focus on strength training. HIs additional size paid off, but Stetzer never stopped attacking, which was great to see.

Morgan Sickinger earned a takedown in the last ten seconds to beat Kaleb Stephens at 141. This was a back and forth match with Sickinger continuing to attack for 7 minutes earning a 5-4 win.

One of the most entertaining matches of the night came at 149. Sophomore Alex Mueller scrapped with Jose’ Quintana. Both guys attacked, counter-attacked, scrambled and got after it for 7 minutes. They wrestled the way we want all of our guys wrestling with a constant effort to score points and entertain the crowd. With twelve seconds to go and Quintana leading 7-6, Mueller hit a duck-under to a body lock and ran through the position to earn a hard fought 8-7 victory.

At 157, sophomore Aaron Konitzer showed his experience by tacking on a riding time point and beating freshman Jake Bauer by a point. He has really bought in to what we’re doing here and made a lot of progress in only a few weeks of practice. However Bauer is a tough, athletic kid who’s been away from wrestling a couple years and has a lot of potential.

At 165, James Dederich ran up the score on Alec Hakes with a 15-0 tech. fall in the first period. James is a redshirt sophomore who missed last season due to injury but is coming into his own this year. He’s a wrestling junkie who should be a team leader in our line up this season. Hakes is a great kid who’s also been out of wrestling for a while but is coachable and will certainly improve over time.

Sam Engelland got after it at 184 winning 11-1 against fellow freshman Matt Halpert. Matt is strong and stays in good position. But after a close first period, Engelland got the action rolling and earned the right to wrestle at 184 against Harper College next week.

In the last match of the night, freshman Jason Laplante earned a hard fought win against Mike Kratz. They went back and forth with Kratz taking the lead early on a nice single and Laplante earning two escapes. With a minute more of riding time in his favor, Laplante earned a last second takedown off Mike’s shot to win 5-2.

Overall I was really pleased with the way our guys competed. It was awesome to see some of them raise their level in a live situation with a crowd watching. You never know how matches will go outside of the wrestling room. It’s hard to really tell who’s the better guy in the practice room with people wrestling into the walls, tripping over teammates, etc. We still have some weights to iron out with guys dropping down gradually and plenty of positions to work on but I like where we are for this early in the season.

Next up is our first dual meet of the year against Harper College at the Wisconsin Wrestling Coaches Association Clinic. It’s great to be wrestling in a featured dual meet at the WWCA Clinic. We are proud of our team and it’s an opportunity to showcase them in front of a knowledgeable WWCA crowd. Harper, coached by UWO Alum Dan Loprieno, is a great program that has finished in the top four nationally 8 times under his direction. They were NJCAA National Champions in 2006 and National Runner-up in their division in 2008. It will be another opportunity for our guys to raise their level as we officially get BACK TO THE GRIND IN ’09!

Oct. 29, 2008

This week we are conducting wrestle offs to determine who our starting line up will be for the beginning of the season. It is very early in the season and these matches are only one indication of how our team might be shaped. To determine our starting line up over the course of the year we look at a number of factors. We use the results from these matches, competition results (especially WIAC competition) as well as day to day attitude, commitment, and willingness to improve.

Monday we had some great matches in the practice room. The winners of these preliminary bouts earned the right to compete on Friday night in the “Black and Gold” meet. Monday’s results went as follows: 125-Carl Deluca won by decision over Zach Mueller. Very good match between these two. Both are talented and have strong offensive attacks from all positions.

149-Alex Mueller won by fall over Luke Nayes while Jose’ Quintana won a close decision over Nick Werner. Nayes and Mueller were scrapping pretty hard before Alex got the fall. Jose’ and Nick were back and forth throughout the match with Jose’ getting a late takedown in the third period. Mueller and Jose’ will compete for the 149 pound spot on Friday. The winner of this match will wrestle against Harper College November 7th. However, Mueller will be dropping down to 141 shortly thereafter.

157-Aaron Konitzer pinned Aaron Geiger after a back and forth match where both guys were scoring from scramble positions. It was a fun match to watch. Also at 157, Jake Bauer won by decision over Tim Evers. This was a lower scoring match with Bauer taking the lead in the third period. He will face Konitzer on Friday night for the right to represent UWO on November 7th.

184-Two matches were contested with Matt Halpert beating Ian Sauer 3-1, while Sam Engelland pinned Ian Sauer. These two young men will compete for the starting spot at 184 until Engelland works his way down to wrestle off at 174 in the near future.

It was good to see these preliminary bouts take place because it let us know some areas of technique to review or discuss in practice this week. It is still so early in the season that we haven’t covered a lot of positions in our system so it doesn’t concern me too much that they were unsure in a few situations.

Friday night should be a lot of fun. I will be conducting a FREE clinic for young wrestlers prior to the Black and Gold Meet. I really enjoy getting to share some things with these young kids. They haven’t developed any bad habits yet so their wrestling skills are very pliable at this stage.

Here are the match ups for Friday night. 285-Jason Laplante vs Mike Kratz (exhibition) 125-Chad Leviner vs Carl Deluca. 133-Nate Stetzer vs Kyle Kleuskens 141-Morgan Sickinger vs Kaleb Stephens 149-Alex Mueller vs Jose’ Quintana 157-Aaron Konitzer vs Jake Bauer 165-James Dederich vs Alec Hakes 174-Eli Felts vs TBA (exhibition) 184-Sam Engelland vs Matt Halpert 197-Mike Kratz vs Morgan Sanden (exhibition).

We’re hoping for a strong crowd so please join us! See you Friday!

Oct. 21, 2008

Our first week and a half of practice has gone tremendously well. Our new team has a great attitude to learn and improve each day which is always a recipe for success. Throughout the week we focused on reviewing the seven basic skills, breaking opponent's stance, fundamental leg attacks, and continuing to build our base level conditioning.

It's always interesting to see the various styles that new guys come in with. I like just watching how they drill and wrestle initially and within a week's time can clean up some mistakes in their fundamental skills such as head position, hand position, foot movement, etc. The improvement taking place in our practice room is rapid!

We capped off the first week with a Team Retreat which was a phenomenal opportunity to train while getting to know each other on a new level. We are focusing more on inspiration and motivation in addition to perspiration. It was a great weekend of team building with solid training and I could already see the difference it made in the way our team responded in practice on Monday.

The team is getting excited for our Black and Gold meet taking place at Kolf Sports Center next Friday October 31st at 6pm. Admission is free and open to the public. This will determine our line up for the early part of the season. I am also doing a free clinic for youth wrestlers in grades 3-8 from 5-6. I'm hoping that we will have a decent crowd to watch the guys compete for a starting spot in our line-up. If our practice matches are any indication of the excitement to take place, you won't want to miss it!

Thanks for reading!

Oct. 14, 2008

Let the fun begin!

Official practices started this week and I couldn't be more excited. We now have 30 young men on our squad which is the most we've had in the wrestling room since I've been here. The room is full of both quality and quantity. Having depth at every weight class is critical to the success of any program. College wrestling is such a grind that very often a team's line up will change from week to week due to injury, illness, etc. This is torture on a coach like me who's trying so hard to build a great program because we haven't always been able to fill in the weights when somebody goes down with injury. With 2-4 guys at every weight, now we can employ the "next man in" philosophy. If somebody goes down, we just say "next man in". That guy then gets an opportunity to prove his worth and we never have to miss a beat!

The guys came into official practices with a very solid base level of conditioning. This is a credit to the leadership of our upperclassmen, especially Eli Felts, as they've been busy pushing each other in voluntary conditioning workouts this fall. It's always easier to finish higher when you start higher. Hopefully that will be the case as we progress throughout the season.

We've started practice about a week later this season than we have the past few years. I've learned that the season tends to get long on the guys, especially freshman. Since we are constantly building our program "brick by brick" we typically have a lot of underclassmen in the line up each year, as the talent of our recruiting classes continues to rise. One of my objectives is to keep things fresh throughout the year so these young men have a lot of "snap" left at the end of the season. This is especially important this year since we're hosting the WIAC Championships right here at Kolf Sports Center.

We're only a couple days in but it's exciting. The numbers have increased, talent level is up, the enthusiasm is higher than ever along with the team camaraderie. It's a great time to be coaching such dedicated young men as we strive to take Titan wrestling to new levels of excellence.

Thanks for reading!

Oct. 7, 2008

Welcome to the new season! We have decided to post an update each week to give parents, fans, coaches, etc. an inside look into Titan Wrestling. We hope you enjoy and continue to follow us throughout the season.

First off I want to welcome a couple of new assistant coaches to our team. Chris Stratton and Joe Terrill have joined the Titan Wrestling coaching staff.

Chris has recently been hired as an instructor in the Physical Education Department and will act as a full time instructor/assistant coach at UW-Oshkosh. He is very organized and detail orientated and will play a huge role in Academic Performance for our team this year in addition to working with 125-141.

Joe Terrill is a former 4 year letter winner for the Wisconsin Badgers who will be working with our 174-Heavyweight wrestlers for the season. He has spent the past few seasons working with Oshkosh North High School but missed the intensity of a college wrestling room and I'm sure will be a great addition to our team.

Of course we still have Coach Nick Matiash who has been a "rock" for our program for nearly a decade and he continues to share his coaching ability with our team. Nick primarily works with 165-197 and is a 2008 Dan Gable Open Champion at 184.

Larry Marchionda continues to serve our program in an array of fashions including alumni support, fundraising, recruiting, and more. Quite frankly, Coach Marchionda is a God send to our program.

We have 18 new recruits on the team this year. The group features 13 State Qualifiers, 3 State Champions, 2 Cadet/Junior All-Americans, and 1 USA Wrestling National Champion! Needless to say, I’m excited about what we have in our wrestling room this year! It is a great group of kids who have jumped in with both feet right out of the gates.

Our Team Captain for this season is senior Eli Felts. Eli is a great example of what can happen with commitment and perseverance. His freshman year he won a total of ZERO matches. His sophomore year he only won seven matches. But as a junior last year, he TRIPLED his win total from the previous two years combined for a total of 21 wins.

With our past schedule against the University of Wisconsin Badgers, National Dual Meet Championships, etc. this is a solid season. I feel comfortable saying that Eli is a “product of the system”. There have been plenty of other young men over the years who came out for the team and quit because they weren’t successful right away like they were in high school. Keep in mind Eli was solid, coming in 5th in the State his senior year, but college wrestling is a different level. One of the things that makes Eli special is his “grit” and “REFUSAL TO BREAK”. He is a great role model for the many young men we have on our team as he also maintains a 3.4 GPA. I will see if Eli can post in next week’s update to share his thoughts on the team, pre-season, etc.

I think that’s all for now. Hope you enjoyed it.