The WIAC Wrestling Championships were held in Whitewater, WI on Sunday, Feb.15. The first place winner was UW-La Crosse with 158.5 points, while the UW-Eau Claire Blugold wrestling team took second place in this championship with 147.5 points.
The other colleges competing against the Blugolds and Eagles were, ranked from first to last, UW-Whitewater, UW-Stevens Point, UW-Platteville and UW-Oshkosh.
Along with placing second, the Blugolds saw four of their athletes become champions in their weight classes. These athletes were Izzy Balsiger, Ian Pepple, Zach Sato and Jared Stricker, who won in their weight classes of 125, 197, 149 and 179 pounds.
Third-year Balsiger took his second title, going 4-0 and taking a victory over UW-Whitewater’s Jalen Dunson. He earned this title with a total of two pins.
Second-year student and past WIAC Kwik Trip Athlete of the Week Ian Pepple took his first WIAC championship this past weekend with 3-0.
He claimed this title by defeating championship winner UW-La Crosse’s Ben Kawczynski, who is ranked second in the WIAC. Pepple said during tournaments, he tries to stay focused mentally.
“(Coach Fader) likes to drill into me a lot that I don’t have to overthink things, just think about what makes me happy in doing this sport,” Pepple said.
Fourth-year Sato took his second WIAC championship victory with a 3-0 and won by technical fall over UW-Lacrosse’s Josh Cherba.
Sato said that, since the tournament, he has been reassured of the team’s ability to grow after he’s gone and that his time on the team has flown by.
“It’s weird to think about how I’m coming on my last year, but it’s definitely been a very formative journey for me to get to this point,” Sato said.
Fourth-year Stricker is now a four-time conference champion. He earned this with two pins and won in the finals over UW-La Crosse’s Eddie Simes.
It is head wrestling coach Tim Fader’s fourth season with UW-Eau Claire, and he said he has seen Stricker through every one of his four championships.
“He’s one of the best to ever wrestle in this conference,” Fader said.
Stricker is the second Blugold wrestler to be a four-time conference winner, after Davey Starks, who got his fourth conference win in 2003.
Fader said the team has had a great performance and that their first-years have worked hard this season.
He said that outside of the strong season, they did have some trouble in January, when many players, including Pepple, became sick.
Pepple said it took him two weeks before he could get back to practice and until the end of the month to get rid of the illness. He said the work he put in to get better was not something he was used to.
“A lot of athletes feel like you have to keep pushing yourself to be better,” Pepple said. “I had to slow things down and prioritize myself first.”
Fader said that factors to their success this year have been the “competitiveness” within the team, their training and facility, Head Strength and Sports Performance Coach Zac Ruch and fan support at the games.
“Wherever we go, we seem to have a big, loud and rowdy crowd, and so we’ve gotten to the point where we expect that, and we depend on it,” Fader said.
The Blugolds will now go on to compete in the Upper Midwest Regional in Minneapolis starting at 11 a.m. on Feb. 28 through March 1.
Fader said they will send the 10 athletes who are believed to have the highest chance of bringing them forward.
His goal is to make it to the NCAA Division III wrestling Championships. If the Blugolds move on to Nationals, then they will be competing in Providence, Rhode Island, from March 14-15.
“The future’s bright and anybody that’s a Blugold fan should be excited for it,” Sato said.
Curtin can be reached at curtinem5864@uwec.edu.
