There are 18 former local high school wrestlers either wrestling or coaching on college wrestling teams this season. Nine are Jackson County Central graduates and nine are former Martin County Red Bulls.
Three of the JCC grads were together recently at the Dragon Open hosted by Minnesota State Moorhead.
Logan Butzon, a freshman at Augustana, made it to his first college finals as he went 3-1 for a second-place finish at 157 pounds in the White Division. Butzon won by scores of 4-2, 10-1 and 4-1 before dropping a 2-0 decision in the championship match.
Will Freking, a sophomore at Concordia College, competed at heavyweight in the Red Division for more experienced college wrestlers despite wrestling for the first time since March of 2022 at the state high school tournament at Xcel Energy Center.
Freking also joined the Cobbers wrestling team late as he played football at Concordia this fall. Will went 2-2 on the day with one of his wins coming by fall as he placed fifth.
Kie Anderson is a sophomore at Concordia. He didn’t wrestle for Cobbers as he is out of the lineup with an injury.
Augustana University is off to a 1-1 start in its NSIC dual meet wrestling schedule. The Vikings won their conference opener over Northern State 21-13 in Aberdeen and then lost at home to Wisconsin-Parkside 23-14.
Martin County West graduate Jaxson Rohman, rated first in NCAA Division II at 125 pounds, won both of his matches.
Rohman won a 12-4 major decision over Northern’s Landen Fischer and then won 9-7 over a familiar rival in Shane Corrigan of Wisconsin-Parkside.
Rohman won two of three matches with Corrigan last season as he won when they met in a dual last season, Corrigan in the finals of the Super Regional, but then Rohman won when they met again in the quarterfinals of the national tournament.
Jackson County Central grad Payton Handevidt split a pair of matches at 157, beating Cael Larson of Northern 8-4 and falling 4-2 to Parkside’s Ben Durocher.
Augustana hosts Nebraska-Kearney on Friday.
Also, on the Augustana roster are MCW grads Payton Anderson, Miles Fitzgerald and Connor Simmonds, along with JCC graduate Caleb Vancura. Another JCC grad, Cooper Moore, is a graduate assistant coach.
Jackson County Central graduate Thomas Freking is a freshman at Iowa State. He has a 2-2 record on the season with one of those wins coming by fall.
JCC grad Isaiah Rodriguez is a freshman at Rochester Community and Technical College. He’s been wrestling well for the Yellow Jackets, but dropped an exhibition match at Augsburg an in a dual vs. Wisconsin-LaCrosse.
Rounding out the Jackson County Central grads, Joe Skow is in his second stint as an assistant coach at Simpson College. Skow wrestled at both University of Sioux Falls and South Dakota State and has worked with AAU clubs in South Dakota.
A pair of Martin County West grads are wrestling at Minnesota State.
Redshirt freshman Kain Sanders has a 5-9 record and freshman Aden Welcome is 10-6.
Two more MCW grads are wrestling at NCAA Division III top-ranked Augsburg College.
Sophomore Lucas Jagodzinske has an 18-5 record for the season after going 5-1 last Saturday and placing seventh at 149 pounds at the North Central Open.
Junior Blake Jagodzinske is 8-2.
Another former Red Bull, Fairmont graduate Jacob Rahn, is a junior with the second-ranked Division III Wartburg wrestling team.
Rahn, a transfer after two seasons at Iowa Lakes Community College, won by fall at heavyweight to cap a 54-0 win for the NCAA Division III second-ranked Knights in a 54-0 win over Nebraska Wesleyan. He’s 5-2 with two falls.