MADISON — Coaches and athletes in all sports talk about building the feeling of family.
The number of examples of how real families were impacted Friday night during the WIAA individual state tournament at the Kohl Center in Madison were plentiful.
Holmen High School coach Justin Lancaster got to watch his son Rex qualify for the Division 1 120-pound championship with an exciting semifinal victory that included his 200th takedown of the season.
Aquinas senior Roger Flege talked about how reaching out to his older brother Tate — now a wrestler at UW-La Crosse — for pointers as he prepared for his Division 3 144-pound semifinal.
Holmen freshman Brendan Henderson had to balance the excitement of winning a Division 1 113-pound final with delicacy after older brother Nathan lost his Division 1 138-pound semifinal by a point.
And Holmen junior Brock Needham got to celebrate besting the junior season of his dad Ross after winning his Division 1 semifinal at 126. While Ross can still hold his Division 1 championship as a Marshfield senior over Brock’s head, his son has officially beaten the fourth-place finish he had as a junior.
Friday night weas a big one for Coulee Region wrestling, and the hope is that Saturday will be big, too.
Seven wrestlers from Holmen and Aquinas qualified to wrestle for championships, and the semifinal outcomes ranged from dominance to perseverance.
Aquinas senior Tyson Martin and sophomore Martez Sheard represented the dominance with matches that lasted just over one minute.
Needham fought for six minutes to make a second-period escape hold up, and Lancaster used that milestone takedown to win a match he trailed for 4 minutes, 57 seconds.
Brendan Henderson, Holmen sophomore Aini Anderson and Flege settled in somewhere between the extremes by winning their matches comfortably.
It all added up to a busy night ahead during the biggest night of the season for all of them on a night started by Anderson and finished by Martin.
More details from a special night to come.
