By Chris Bennett
Correspondent
The Mid-States Tournament at UW-Whitewater showed the Elkhorn Area High School wrestling team how much farther it must go to achieve its goals this season.
The Elks finished second in the 32-team tournament with 221 points. Stoughton won the tournament with 279 points.
Elkhorn and Stoughton will wrestle against each other in the WIAA’s Division 1 postseason, which begins in January.
“They beat us pretty good,” Elks coach Ken Reynolds said. “We want a better finish than that – there’s no doubt. I honestly think the kids expected to finish better than they did.”
Reynolds said Mid-States turned into a two-team race for the top spot, and said the Elks did beat 30 other teams. Oconomowoc finished third with 165.5 points.
Konnor Mohr at 152 pounds won his second Mid-States title in as many seasons. Mohr, 15-2 overall, beat Kenosha Tremper’s Frank Garcia 5-4 in the title match and finished 5-0 at Mid-States.
“That’s impressive,” Reynolds said. “You don’t just go to Mid-States and win titles every year.”
Dylan Linhart at 220, John Olsen at 145 and Bryce Fitzgerald at 126 each finished second.
Linhart (17-1) lost 3-2 to Oconomowoc’s Brett Samson in the title match and finished 4-1.
Fitzgerald (16-2) also finished 4-1, and lost 19-8 to Stoughton’s Zach Hasselberger in the title match.
Olsen (14-2) lost an 11-5 decision to East Troy’s Andy Strey in the championship match, and finished the day at 4-1.
Keaton Verhoeven at 182 and Jordan Barr at 195 each finished third. Verhoeven (14-5) finished the day 6-1. Verhoeven’s only loss came against Sycamore’s Christopher Malone in the quarterfinals. Malone won 4-3.
Verhoeven, a senior, is wrestling in high school for the first time.
“He improves every match, even from the beginning to the end,” Reynolds said. “He is just improving at a rapid pace. He is going to be a force to be reckoned with at the end of the season.”
Barr (14-1) lost his first match of the season in the semifinals when Stoughton’s Austin Benton pinned him in 1 minute, 45 seconds. Barr finished 5-1 at Mid-States.
“He’s wrestling up a weight class for the team,” Reynolds said of Barr.
Benji Peak at 106 suffered his first two losses of the season at Mid-States. Peak (14-2) finished in fourth place after losing a 5-1 decision to Harvard’s Joshua Figel in the third-place match.
“For him to take fourth place is pretty good,” Reynolds said. “The kids he’s losing to are juniors and seniors, and he’s a freshman.”
Richie Heidemann at 285 wrestled seven matches and finished fifth. Heidemann (16-4) beat Beloit Turner’s Dan Draeving 3-1 in overtime in the fifth-place match.
After spending much of December on the road the Elks are at home for their first matches of 2015. Elkhorn is 3-0 in Southern Lakes Conference dual meets, and wrestles Union Grove tonight at home in a SLC dual.
The Elks play host to the Elkhorn Duals Saturday at Elkhorn Area High School.
