CASHTON — As the seconds ticked off the clock, Aquinas High School junior Isaac Miller was just looking for the opening he needed.
That wasn’t the case for the first 5 minutes, 30 seconds of his 215-pound match against Iowa-Grant/Highland junior Tanner Degenhardt in a WIAA Division 3 team sectional final.
Miller’s assignment for this match on Saturday was to not get pinned. He was instructed to engage with Degenhardt cautiously and position himself for a good shot at a takedown in the closing seconds that could possibly steal a victory.
As the clock hit 13 seconds remaining and facing a two-point deficit, Miller shot at Degenhardt’s left leg, secured it and drove through him to take them both to the ground. The Aquinas bench erupted and grew louder as the final seconds disappeared.
Miller had won, and while his match was just the third of the dual, it likely slammed the door on the Panthers and certainly greased the wheels for Aquinas in what became a 47-30 victory that made the Blugolds WIAA team state qualifiers for the first time and melted away several years of sectional frustration.
“I wasn’t supposed to win that match,” Miller said with a smile. “Pulling it out right at the end was awesome.
“I looked at the coaches, and they told me to go. I was just supposed to wrestle smart and not be stupid. I was on the defensive the whole match and waiting to take a shot at the end, and it worked.”
Wins by senior Marcus Klar (32-12) at 190 and Miller (16-16) at 215 gave the Blugolds a 7-6 lead at a point the Panthers — a team that has ended Aquinas’ season in both 2023 and 2025 — likely thought they’d be in control.
Klar bumped up two classes from wrestling at 165 last week to beat Iowa-Grant/Highland sophomore and individual state qualifier Ty Cutts 12-0 to get the Blugolds on the board.
“Marcus bumping up and winning state qualifier against state qualifier and then Isaac going out there and wrestling exactly the way we wanted him to,” Aquinas coach Deke Stanek said. “At that point, we knew — we believed — that we were in the driver’s seat.”
Senior Tyson Martin (41-1, 285), sophomore Martez Sheard (32-3, 132), senior Roger Flege (32-4) and freshman Jacob Penzkover (36-12) all followed with pins, and sophomore Tyler Paulson (32-8, 138) a major decision in a dominant performance against the state’s ninth-ranked Division 3 team.
Top-ranked Aquinas, which has beaten five of the top nine Division 3 teams in the state and handed Prairie du Chien an 82-0 loss in the sectional semifinals, now has a chance to wrestle for a team state championship at the La Crosse Center on March 6-7.
Saturday’s seven sectional champs in each of the three divisions have their spots, and one wild-card second-place finisher will be chosen in each division to complete brackets.
The opportunity is one the Aquinas seniors have been waiting for.
“It’s weird,” Martin, a three-time individual state semifinalist and two-time state runner-up, said of the celebration. “It’s good that we finally did it. I mean, it’s for us but also all the people from previous teams that didn’t get to (advance).
Flege, who joins Martin as a top-ranked performer in his weight class by Wisconsin Grappler, said the payoff for a push that had already begun when he joined the team as a freshman was sweet.
“We always say that attitude and effort is so important,” he said. “I think those are two areas we are really strong in and got us to this point, and now it’s time for us to go prove ourselves at state, as well.”
While all of this could have happened without Miller’s late takedown, everyone agreed that the moment he created was integral.
Miller’s victory provided a story he’ll be able to tell for years, and it won’t need a bit of embellishment.
