EAU CLAIRE — The Holmen High School girls wrestling team won a WIAA sectional championship Friday by working together to score 99 points in a meet hosted by Eau Claire North.
The Vikings finished comfortably ahead of second-place Black River Falls (69) and third-place Eau Claire North (58) and had two wrestlers qualify for next weekend’s individual state tournament at the Kohl Center in Madison.
Senior Haley Dezelske won the 114-pound bracket, and senior teammate Allison Weiss placed second at 120 to give Holmen its individual state qualifiers.
Dezelske (31-9) pinned all three of her opponents and won the title when she finished Nekoosa co-op’s Amiya Leverance (32-11) in 2 minutes, 33 seconds. She also pinned her quarterfinal opponent in 47 seconds and her semifinal opponent in 5:33. All three of the wrestlers she beat had winning records.
Weiss (26-16) advanced to her championship bout but lost Eau Claire Memorial’s Anne Green (28-8) by pin. But a win over Westfield’s Katrina Murray — also a pin — gave Weiss second place and the qualifying spot.
Kaytlynn Lambries (30-6, 107), Peyton Kratochvill (23-17, 126) and Alexa Szak (18-10, 138) all placed third for the Vikings, but only the top two finishers in each bracket advanced.
Arcadia’s Kalyce Sobotta (32-7) placed third in the 132 bracket and also missed out on the state opportunity. She won by pin and major decision before getting pinned in the finals, then losing a 9-3 decision to Sparta’s Veda Lepley in the second-place match.
Payten Craig (20-9) represented G-E-T/Melrose-Mindoro but lost her only match at 114.
Prairie du Chien Sectional
PRAIRIE DU CHIEN — Aquinas senior Sophia Paulson won her first two matches in the 145 bracket, and a pin of Verona’s Olivia Stubitsch eventually gave her a qualifying spot for the state tournament.
Paulson (26-6) lost the championship bout by technical fall to Cuba City’s Chloe LaRue (40-1), but her pin of Stubitsch in her second match gave Paulson automatic ownership of second place.
Logan/Central had three sectional qualifiers in Emylie Vang (10-13, 120), Rachel Hang (19-7, 126) and Myrikal Johnson (11-14, 165), but all three lost their first-round matches.
