Tosa wrestlers beat Rockets, finish 45-11 at Tech Invitational

The Wauwatosa East/West wrestling team defeated South Milwaukee, 37-36, in a thriller in their first match of the season Nov. 30 at home, then took part in the Bradley Tech Invitational on Saturday.

Tosa led, 37-30, going into the final match, so a final pin (6 points) in the 160-pound match was meaningless to the final results.

"It was an exciting dual and as improbable as it may seem, I would say the first match of the night provided the deciding point for the meet," Tosa coach Kent Morin said.

"Sam Bertz was winning (10-4) with 30 seconds left in the match. He scored a takedown, which put him up by eight points, which is a major decision worth one additional team point. Without that one team point, we lose the meet on tiebreaker criteria."

Morin also pointed out that the other crucial win was Ben Reagan's pin at 120 pounds, since he was only winning 5-4 at the time of the fall.

"South Milwaukee is a good team," Morin said. "They were picked as preseason runner-up in the conference. We knew that it was going to take a total team effort to beat them, and that is what we got.

"Two of our better wrestlers, (Kai) Castaneda and (Max) Nelson, were upset. But our other guys were there to pick them up. It was a fun meet to be a part of and hopefully is a good starting point for us to build upon."

Other winners for Tosa were Larry Bryant at 195 (forfeit), John Brennan at 220 (pin 28 seconds), AJ Minucci at 126 (pin 4:33), Eric Ehlert at 132 (pin 3:47) and Michael Meade at 138 (14-10).

At the Bradley Tech DeBraie Tournament, the locals beat Milwaukee Vincent/Brown Deer (58-18), Pius XI (54-30), Marquette (50-18), and the Pewaukee reserves (64-18), losing only to Bradley Tech (47-36).

Individual results included: Castaneda (4-1, 3 pins), Dylan Christman (2-0, 1 pin), Reagan (4-1, 1 pin), Minucci (4-1, 3 pins), Ehlert (3-2, 3 pins), Meade (3-0, 3 pins), Nelson (4-1, 2 pins), Marcus Morrow (4-1, 1 pin, 3 major decisions), Bertz (3-1, 3 pins), Sam Hanrahan (1-1, 1 pin), Akeem Harris (4-1, 4 pins), Divine Burt (4-1, 3 pins), Brennan (5-0, 3 pins).

"We had to wrestle the whole day trying to dig out of deficits," Morin said. "We are without a heavyweight wrestler and didn't have a 195 wrestler because Larry Bryant was unavailable.

"Christman was sick at 113, so he was limited to only wrestling two matches. Meade had to miss the first two matches because of a school jazz concert conflict.

"The great news is the other guys knew that they were going to have to give maximum effort to overcome this and they did. On the day, we went 45-11 in our matches with 28 pins. That is an outstanding team effort."

The day's top wrestler was Brennan, who went 5-0 with three pins. Combined with his pin against South Milwaukee, he earned wrestler of the week honors for the team.

Meade was also dominating in his three matches, pinning all three opponents, including Little Hicks from Bradley Tech, an outstanding wrestler.

Harris continued to impress in his first year on varsity with four pins and a controversial call in his one defeat.

"He is just so strong that he is able to overpower people," Morin said. "Lastly, freshman Marcus Morrow wrestled way beyond his freshman year experience with a pin and three dominating major decisions. On Saturday, he was our best wrestler on his feet. His takedowns were smooth and impressive."

Morin was pleased with his team's performance at the invitational.

"Overall, we were very happy with our performance on Saturday," he said.