HJ Sports Blog

By Stephen Wiblemo
Sports Editor
The Dassel-Cokato wrestling team is beaten up, but they continue to put wrestlers on the mat, and they continue to win duals.
The Chargers (17-2, 5-1) kept doing what they have been all season Thursday when the hosted Wright County Conference rival Watertown-Mayer. The Royals gave DC a good workout, but the home team prevailed 39-34.
It wasn’t a walk in the park for the Chargers, who built an early 27-9 lead only to have the Royals come from behind and take a 34-27 lead with two weights to go.
Of course, those last two weights are where DC’s monsters, Dakota Hanson and Sam Pokornowski, live.
Hanson tired his opponent out and scored a pin in the second period, and Pokornowksi made short work of his match with a 36-second pin to clinch the dual.
It wasn’t all Hanson and Pokornowksi, though. DC wrestlers up and down the weights classes had to play their parts perfectly for the Chargers to win.
“I think tonight was all about momentum, and the guys getting excited and doing their jobs,” DC senior Max Anderson said. “They all know what they have to do to win the dual meet. They know how to wrestle for the team, not just for themselves.”
Wrestling for the team means scoring bonus points when you can, and allowing as few as possible when you have to.
Both teams won seven matches, and both forfeited one in the dual. Of DC’s wins, five of them were pins. Besides the forfeits, the Chargers scored 15 bonus points and only gave up 10 to the Royals.
Along with Hanson and Pokornowski, Anderson (112 pounds), Brandon Fiedler (119), and Brett Abrahamson (140) also scored pins.
While every point is important in a dual this close, perhaps the biggest were those won by Charger 125 pounder Kyle Johnson.
After the first three periods, Johnson and WM’s Joe Reinert were tied in a scoreless match. In the sudden-death overtime, however, Reinert made a hasty move and left himself open for Johnson, who took advantage and scored a takedown for the 2-0 decision win.
Although he hadn’t been able to score a point yet, Johnson said he was still confident his training would help him pull it out.
“I was pretty confident, because I’ve put in a lot of hard work in the wrestling room,” he said. “All those extra matches that we wrestle are to help us outcondition other teams, and help us come out on top.”
That six-point swing was the difference between a 39-34 DC win, and a 37-36 loss.

Fri., Jan. 22
DC 39, Watertown-Mayer 34
103 - Aaron Sweeney (WM) pinned Brady Peterson at 5:25
112 - Max Anderson (DC) pinned Matt Elsenpeter at :26
119 - Brandon Fiedler (DC) pinned Nate Hilman at 1:03
125 - Kyle Johnson (DC) beat Joe Reinert by 2-0 dec. in OT
130 - Drew Flemming (WM) beat Zach Peterson by 7-3 dec.
135 - Tyler Dobmeier (DC) won by forfeit
140 - Brett Abrahamson (DC) pinned Joe Jobe at 3:06
145 - Joe Stadnick (WM) pinned Dan Wanha at 3:04
152 - Ben Hillman (WM) pinned Ben Ingle at 1:16
160 - Max Poikonen (WM) won by forfeit
171 - Matt White (WM) beat Grant Petersen by 6-1 dec.
189 - Taylor Neaton (WM) beat Joe Chap by 9-1 maj. dec.
215 - Dakota Hanson (DC) pinned Mark Rains at 2:46
285 - Sam Pokornowski (DC) pinned Nick Burns at :36
Chargers crown four champs at Elk River Invite
The Chargers were wrestling on the road Jan. 23 at the Elk River Invitational. During the invite, four DC wrestlers were crowned champions of their weight classes, four finished in second place, and the Chargers took third as a team with 173.5 points.
DC had 11 wrestlers competing for the team, leaving 119, 145, and 160 pounds open due to injuries and sickness.
The Chargers also had two extra wrestlers competing unattached from the team – Ryan Christensen at 112 pounds and Brient Pokornowski at 285. They could not earn points for DC as a team.
DC’s four champions were Max Anderson at 112, Zach Peterson at 130, Tyler Dobmeier at 135, and Sam Pokornowski at heavyweight.
Anderson cruised through his matches, receiving a first-round bye and beating his second-round opponent 6-0. His championship match went just as smooth as he won a 10-4 decision.
Peterson’s road was a little tougher. He won his first match with a 10-1 major decision. In his second match, however, he pulled out a narrow 5-4 victory over Osseo’s Adam Hammer, who is ranked seventh in the state in Class AAA at 125 pounds according to The Guillotine web site’s ratings. The championship was no cake-walk either as he took on Aaron Padrnos of Brainerd, who is ranked eighth at 130 pounds in Class AAA, and won 8-6.
Dobmeier breezed through his first and second matches with a 12-2 major decision and 16-1 technical fall. His championship match was a different story, however, as he pulled out a 7-6 decision over Nick Grausam of Brainerd.
Sam Pokornowski’s championship was the oddest of them all. With his younger brother wrestling in the same weight class unattached, the chance the two could meet up in the championship was very real.
Sam received a bye in his first round, and then pinned Zimmerman’s Albin Sterneman in 51 seconds to make it to the finals.
Brient, meanwhile, pinned his first-round opponent in 32 seconds, and then defeated Kyle Wiemann of Elk River 3-1 to meet his brother in the championship.
Rather than let the two go at it, DC head coach Bryan Clemen decided to forfeit the match to Sam to give DC the team points, and because he is the varsity wrestler.
The Chargers had three other wrestlers make it to the finals, but fall short for second place.
DC’s 125 pounder, Kyle Johnson, won his first two matches with an 8-5 decision and pin at 5:36, but he lost 7-2 to Brainerd’s Matt Solid in the championship.
Grant Peterson won his first 171-pound match with a 9-6 decision, but lost to Brainerd’s Chad Ohman 8-1 in the finals.
Dakota Hanson, DC’s 215 pounder who is ranked eighth in the state in Class AA, won his first match 13-7, but faced a tough opponent in the championship against Jeff Nielsen of Zimmerman. Nielsen is the state’s top ranked 189 pounder in Class AA, and even though he was wrestling up a weight, he edged Hanson for a 4-2 decision win.
The Chargers had several other wrestlers place at the invite. 103 pounder Brady Peterson took fifth place, 140 pounder Dan Wanha took third, Andrew Madson was fifth at 152 pounds, and Joe Chap finished fourth at 189 pounds.

Fri., Jan. 15
Team scores – 1. Elk River 233.5, 2. Brainerd 201.5, 3. Dassel-Cokato 173.5, 4. Zimmerman 126, 5. Osseo 101, 6. Stillwater 69, 7. St. Paul Harding 51, 8. ‘Unattached’ 46, 9. Columbia Heights 25
DC wrestlers
103 pounds
• Carter Nielsen (Zim) beat Brady Peterson by 12-3 maj. dec.
• Dillan Nelson (Sti) beat Peterson by 6-2 dec.
• Peterson beat Carson Brolsma (Oss) by 4-2 dec.
112 pounds
• Zach Stepan (Zim) pinned Ryan Christensen at 1:12
• Max Anderson beat Jake Staffenhagen (Elk) by 6-0 dec.
• Dan Babineau (Brn) beat Christensen by 17-1 tech. fall
• Anderson beat Bradley Kuehn (Sti) by 10-4 dec.
119 pounds
No DC wrestler
125 pounds
• Kyle Johnson beat Nick Madsen (Elk) by 8-5 dec.
• Johnson pinned Andrew Lanners (Oss) at 5:36
• Matt Solid (Brn) beat Johnson by 7-2 dec.
130 pounds
• Zach Peterson beat Mike Robinson (Zim) by 10-1 maj. dec.
• Petereson beat Adam Hammer (Oss) by 5-4 dec.
• Peterson beat Aaron Padrnos (Brn) by 8-6 dec.
135 pounds
• Tyler Dobmeier beat Weston Schwartz (Zim) by 12-2 maj. dec.
• Dobmeier beat Che Her (Har) by 16-1 tech. fall
• Dobmeier beat Nick Grausam (Brn) by 7-6 dec.
140 pounds
• Austin Stevens (Elk) beat Dan Wanha by 8-7 dec.
• Wanha beat Tyler Gordon (Oss) by 11-0 maj. dec.
• Wanha pinned Alex Hagel (Sti) at :49
145 pounds
No DC wrestler
152 pounds
• Mack Glasby (Brn) pinned Andrew Madson at 1:16
• Madson beat Frank Torbor (Oss) by 12-2 maj. dec.
• Levi Rubin (Una) pinned Madson at 3:24
• Madson beat Mitch Keogh (Sti) by 17-10 dec.
160 pounds
No DC wrestler
171 pounds
• Grant Petersen beat Nick Smith (Elk) by 9-6 dec.
• Chad Ohman (Brn) beat Petersen by 8-1 dec.
189 pounds
• Quinn Rasmussen (Zim) beat Joe Chap by 6-5 dec.
• Chap beat Farris Turner (Har) by default
• Rasmussenn (Zim) beat Chap by 6-5 dec.
215 pounds
• Dakota Hanson beat Jory Lubinski (Elk) by 13-7 dec.
• Jeff Nielsen (Zim) beat Hanson by 4-2 dec.
285 pounds
• Brient Pokornowski pinned Mitch Schroeder (Oss) at :32
• Sam Pokornowski pinned Albin Sterneman (Zim) at :51
• Brient Pokornowksi beat Kyle Wiemann (Elk) by 3-1 dec.
• Sam Pokornowski beat Brient Pokornowski by forfeit