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Southern Door High School

Head wrestling coach reflects on son's achievement

Saturday 

concluded our 2020-2021 wrestling season.  Before getting into results, I would personally like to thank SD Schools for the opportunity to have a season amidst the pandemic.  I also want to thank the WIAA for making the post season as good as it was for the athletes involved.  Yesterday's state tournament was hosted in three different locations with tight restrictions on the number of spectators.  Despite the challenges, the effort to make the tournament look and feel like it has in the past did not go unnoticed by coaches or athletes.   Weigh-ins, the warm-up area, bull pen area, highlights video, parade of champions, and the awards presentations, among other things, were as good as could be expected.  While there's nothing like competing in front of 15,000 spectators at the Kohl Center in Madison, the effort by many people was greatly appreciated.

 

Grant Englebert was at Wausau East High School representing Southern Door at the D3 individual state tournament.  Grant made it to state in 2019 at 145 lbs his sophomore season and finished fifth.  In 2020 Grant qualified at 152 lbs, but lost by a point in the opening round and did not place.  This year Grant qualified at 160 lbs by finishing second at last week's sectional tournament in Valders.  Unlike recent years where the top three finishers at sectionals qualified for state, this year only the top two advanced.  

 

Grant's first-round opponent was the St. Croix Falls sectional champion from Boyceville, Tyler Dormanen.  Dormanen won his sectional with an impressive win over last year's state runner-up.  Dormanen likes to scramble and get his opponents out of position.  Grant came out strong and scored an early takedown.  After a penalty, point made it 2-1 Grant scored a reversal and two near-fall to advance to a 6-1 lead.  Grant stayed in a great position and was in control from start to finish.  Dormanen finished the day in third place.

 

In the semi-final match, Grant faced the Mineral Point sectional champion, David Malin from LaCrosse Aquinas.  Again, Grant came out strong scoring a quick takedown.  After giving up an escape, Grant got back on the attack and scored a second takedown to end the first period up 4-1.  Malin tried several times to force things, but Grant was able to keep control, earn near fall, and finally the pin late in the third period.  Malin would finish the day in fourth place behind Dormanen.

 

With the win, Grant advanced to the finals where he faced Aiden Vandenbush from Random Lake.  Vandenbush was a state champion at 152 lbs last year and has been ranked #1 all season long.  Vandenbush won each match at state last year by pin or tech fall.  In both the first and second rounds this year he earned pins early in the second period.  Grant worked hard to avoid tying up with Vandenbush and was able to get in on a few leg attacks but just couldn't finish.  Grant kept it close in the first period and was able to fend off a barrage of moves in the second before Vandenbush chose to go back to neutral and build his lead going into the third period.  In the third period, Grant made a couple of attempts, but Vandenbush was very smooth with his defense and counterattacks.

 

While no-one dreams of finishing in second place or falling short of a goal, Grant can still be proud of his place in the records of Southern Door Wrestling, his accomplishments, and his improvements.  Grant is only the third three-time state qualifier and amongst a handful of two-time place winners.  With the limited number of matches allowed this season, Grant won't have the statistics to match some of past years.  Grant finished 17-3 this season.  His only losses were to the fourth-place finisher at 170 in D2 when he moved up to get a quality match and in the sectional and state finals.  He didn't get a chance for the big tournament wins which would have been fun, but he did get wins over several highly ranked opponents this season.

 

Grant has plans to move on to the next level and see what he can do at UW- LaCrosse next fall.  We will be watching and look forward to having Grant come back up to the wrestling room any time he can.

 

Thank you Grant for four wonderful years of wrestling, 

Coach/Dad 

Jerry Englebert