The University of Wisconsin- La Crosse wrestling team defeated the Luther College Norse on Saturday, Dec. 8. The Eagles won the night with the score of 34-4. UWL won nine out of the ten matches of the night including one forfeit and improved to 4-1 on the season while Luther College fell to 0-2. 

The bout on Saturday night was held at the Student Union in the Bluff Room. All the fans had a close-up view of every match with the front row of fans almost on top of the edge of the mat. While others could watch the match projected on several screens throughout the room.  

UWL Sophomore Spencer Nevills said, “Wrestling in the U (Student Union) was awesome, the atmosphere was different that it usually is. It was very quiet and gave off a very high intensity. It would be awesome to compete there again.” 

The first match of the night at the 125 pounds weight class included undefeated UWL Freshman Zach Villareal against Luther’s Conner Murphy. Villareal stayed undefeated on the season outscoring Murphy 10-6.  

UWL lost the lead in the next match in the 133 pounds weight class as UWL Senior Quinten Miracle lost to Luther’s Sam Camacho 13-2. The overall score of the dual was 4-3 in Luther’s advantage early.  

“Before the dual, all week Coach (Dave Malecek) was trying to drill into our heads, fight. Fight for every position, fight for every second of the match,” said Nevills.  

Next on the mat was UWL Junior Reid Johnson in the 141 pounds weight class improved his individual record to 2-0 on the season with a 4-3 win against Luther’s Tyler Menegay.  

Nevills was able to increase UWL’s lead to 9-4 with a 3-0 win against Luther’s Gilbert Valadez in the 149 pounds weight class.  

“The biggest challenge in my match was having the stomach flu and trying to deal with that while wrestling,” said Nevills, “However, I wrestled very solid but still have work to do. I need to be less sluggish and attack a lot more.” 

UWL Senior Michael Murnane won the next fight of the night by forfeit, his opponent was set to be Luther’s Izzac Suarez. 

With the forfeit increasing UWL’s lead to 15-4 and after UWL Junior Mitch Hertel’s 8-3 victory over Billy Poray in the 165 pounds weight class UWL led by 14 points with the score 18-4.  

UWL Sophomore Sawyer Massie won by the biggest margin of the whole night in the 174 pounds weight class. Winning his match by 11 points (18-7) scoring UWL a major decision.  

Nevills said, “Sawyer Massie performed very well, he fought through his whole match and really made that kid break down.” 

UWL Senior Sean O’Neil came back with another victory for UWL in the 184 pounds weight class. O’Neil defeated Luther’s Ira Kuehn 5-1, increasing UWL’s lead to 25-4. 

The only fall of the night came in the 197 pounds weight class by UWL Senior Wesley Schultz pinning Luther’s Hunter Weaver.  

The final match of the night was at the 285 pounds weight class as UWL Sophomore Konrad Ernst defeated Luther’s Dakota Daffinson with the score of 7-0.  

“We fought hard in most matches, we were very flat and sluggish though…. We need to work on our sluggishness and we need to come out firing on all cylinders and take the fight to the other team,” said Nevills.  

Before this dual UWL was ranked 17 in the National Wrestling Coaches Association Division III which came out on November 15, according to uwlathletics.com. 

The next home meet for UWL is on January 11 against University of Wisconsin- Platteville.