Posted: Jan. 14, 2010 |(0) Comments

After separate conversations with the respective coaches, a casual observer would have thought that Nicolet had won the North Shore Conference wrestling dual at Germantown Thursday night.

But despite what Warhawk coach Casey Gabrielson felt was an off performance, Germantown had enough to outlast a persistent Knight squad, 42-32, on its parents' night.

"I thought it was our worst meet of the year," said Gabrielson. "We had no energy and we were flat. Even our wins were flat. ..Nicolet came to wrestle every match. They showed up with a nothing-to-lose attitude and it showed. They wrestled better than us."

Nicolet coach Gus Kaufmann appreciated the praise, but needed a few more bodies to get the win. The Knights forfeited to the Warhawks at 171 pounds (Mike Knippen the win) and at 152 (John Will). The 152 match was the last one of the night.

Nicolet's Bobby Herrick had won a tough 6-3 decision at 145 just before that but Germantown had effectively clinched the match with a first period pin by Danny Krause at 140.

The most exciting bout of the evening came right before Krause's win at 135.

Germantown's Brian Kuhlenbeck took a 7-2 lead on the Knights' Matt Dineen into the third period, but Dineen got an escape, a takedown and a nearfall in short order to take an 8-7 lead. Two reversals, an escape and a takedown followed and left the grapplers tied at 11-all and headed into overtime.

Just 12 seconds into the overtime period, Dineen countered a Kuhlenbeck shoot and got the winning takedown.

"He's struggled in the third period before," Kaufmann said of Dineen, "but he had to dig down deep to get the win. That was really big for his confidence. I thought we wrestled tough tonight. We didn't know quite where they were mentally, but we wanted them to think that we were going to go out there and give them a tough six minutes everytime out."

Other Nicolet wins included pins by Wilhelm Fehlhaber at 160 (5:21), Jonathan McKay at 215 (3:59) and Austin Bay at 125 (3:29). "They're all sophomores, so that's just terrific for them," said Kaufmann. Also winning for the Knights were Chris Morrell at 103 (16-6 major decision) and Ethan Klein at 112 (12-0 major decision).

"We gave up 12 points (via forfeits) and lost by 10, it's been the story of our season," said Kaufmann.

For Germantown, wins included Eric Bloedorn at 189 (pin 1:17), Joe Multerer at 285 (pin 1:07), Cody Szohr at 119 (pin 5:33), and two-time state champion Jesse Thielke at 130, who stayed unbeaten with a pin in 1:14 of the Knights' otherwise very sound Dakota Mitchell.

That kind of domination of good competition has been the story of Thielke's season.

"Things seem to be going a lot easier this winter," the junior said. "It was a busy and good summer for me and I think it changed my perception of things a little bit. My goal now is to go out there and completely dominate. Give everything I've got right to the finish."

For Gabrielson, whose team is now 3-1 in league duals, it's an attitude he'd like to see spread to the entire team.

"They (Nicolet) wanted to win and we just showed up," he said. "That's something we can't do against the really good teams."