MEDFORD - Hunter Luepke has had his share of prep wrestling success as an individual, including a WIAA state title at 195 pounds last year. On Saturday, however, the senior was able to celebrate a postseason team accomplishment.
Luepke was one of five individual champions as Spencer/Columbus Catholic won a Division 2, Regional 4 championship at Medford and advanced to the team sectionals for the first time as a cooperative program.
The Rockets will take the three-hour trip to Hayward on Tuesday and are one of four teams in the team sectional meet with the winner headed to Madison for the WIAA team state tournament on March 2-3. Spencer High School won a team regional title on its own in 1999.
"The team performed well today, we get to go wrestle in sectionals Tuesday and get to be out of school for it, so it's all pretty awesome," said Luepke, who pinned Neillsville/Greenwood/Loyal's Tanner Zchernitz 67 seconds into the 220 pound title match and improved to 41-0 for the season. "During the year, we just wanted to get better every day and compete for the (Clovebelt) conference title. After we got that, we made it a point that we wanted to get the regional title as well."
Spencer/Columbus Catholic's Dominick Wichiacz (113), Bryce Shaw (145), Carsnn Hildebrandt (170 and Logan Zschernitz (285) also won their respective weight classes. A total of eight Rockets wrestlers advanced to next week's individual sectional meet in and Spencer/Columbus Catholic finished with 249.5 points.
Medford was second with 218 points and Neillsville/Granton/Loyal was third with 182.
"The guys who placed obviously did great today but we needed everybody (in the lineup) to make this happen today," Spencer/Columbus Catholic coach Jake Zchernitz said. "There's guys who didn't make it through (to individual sectionals) but took third, fourth or fifth today that scored team points and helped us win this.
"I knew coming in that (Medford) likely was going to be the closest team to us. Some people might have thought coming in here we would take this easily today but I didn't think so," Zchernitz said. "Medford has good wrestlers and we needed contributions from everybody today (to win)."
Medford had five individual champions — Dane Higgins (120), Walker Ewan (126), Zeke Sigmund (132), Andy Poetzl (138) and Kolten Hanson (160) — and advances seven wrestlers overall to next week's individual sectional meet.
Medford coach Brandon Marcis said his team's struggles in the opening round of the regional tournament was a difference in the team competition.
"Coming in we knew a (regional title) was realistic but that first round we needed to get all our guys through and we couldn't quite do it. That hurt us as a team a little bit and we couldn't quite come back," Marcis said. "But overall I thought the individual performance was good. If you look at improvement, we sent five wrestlers last year (to individual sectionals) and we sent seven this time. Our focus now is to get those individuals as far as they can go (in the postseason)."
Team scores: Spencer/Columbus Catholic 249.5, Medford 218, Neillsville/Greenwood/Loyal 182, Stanley-Boyd/Owen-Withee 173.5, Abbotsford/Colby 103, Black River Falls/Lincoln 71.
Sectional qualifiers: 106- 1. Blaine Brenner, SB/OW. 2. Ashton Ackman, S/CC. 113-1. Dominick Wichlacz, S/CC. 2. Jake Brunner, Med. 120: 1. Dane Higgins, Med. 2. Leo Rodriguez, S/CC. 126: 1. Walker Ewan, Med. 2. Russell Dorn, S-B/O-W. 132-1. Zeke Sigmund, Med. 2. Nathan Buchanan N/G/L. 138-1. Andy Poetzl, Med. 2. Logan Ruesch, A/C. 145-1. Bryce Shaw, S/CC. 2. Dyan Nielsen, N/G/L. 152-Dalton Smith, S-B/O-W. 2. Caden Schillinger, S/CC. 160-1. Kolten Hanson, Med. 2. Joseph Aguilera, A/C. 170-Carson Hildebrandt, S/CC. 2. Jesse Buchanan, N/G/L. 182-Stephen Buchanan, N/G/L. 2. Ben Turner, S-B/O-W. 195-Lucas Ingold, N/G/L. 2. Jake Rau, Med. 220: 1. Hunter Luepke, S/CC. 2. Tanner Zchernitz, N/G/L. 285: 1. Logan Zchernitz, S/CC. 2. Sean Hassamer, S-B/O-W.