Wrestling: Warriors dominate Apollo

Brainerd’s Fletcher DeRosier and the rest of the team celebrates after DeRosier pinned Carlos Agee of St. Cloud Apollo Thursday at Brainerd High School, securing his first varsity win. Kelly Humphrey/Brainerd Dispatch - Gallery and Video

By Jeremy Millsop

January 20, 2017 at 5:33 PM

Warriors 70, Apollo 4

Key: Warriors secured five pins and six forfeits

Conf: Brd 5-1, SCA 0-4

Overall: Brd 9-6, SCA 1-10

Next: Brainerd at Champlin Park duals Saturday

Happy birthday Andy Pickar.

The Brainerd Warriors hall of fame wrestler, and former two-time Class 3A individual state champion, still owns part of the school's all-time wins record.

That's because the young man he's tied with, Andy Schlosser, suffered an 8-0 defeat in Thursday's 70-4 Central Lakes Conference victory over St. Cloud Apollo at Brainerd High School.

Schlosser, a senior with 146 career wins, could have taken the easy road and secured one of the six forfeit victories Brainerd earned. Instead Class 3A's eighth-ranked 145-pounder chose to move up Brainerd's lineup to face Apollo's Peter Nelson, who is ranked No. 2 in Class 2A at 145 pounds.

"I'm trying not to think about it as much as I can," Schlosser. "Andy and I wrestled a little bit during the offseason and he's been real supportive of it actually. He's wished me luck. He's glad that it's going to be beaten.

"It just didn't feel right taking a record with a forfeit. I just wanted to go out there and give it all I've got."

The match went the distance, but Nelson secured the 8-0 major decision. It was the only blemish on a quick Warrior win.

Chad Orsburn posted a 1:07 pin at 113 pounds to get things rolling. Chance Miller pinned his opponent in 48 seconds. Morgan Gibson topped that with a 23-second pin. Brainerd ended with back-to-back pins from Logan Theodore in 1:09 and a 2:21 pin from Fletcher DeRosier. It was DeRosier's first varsity victory.

"We bumped Fletcher up to heavyweight so that was a nice win for him to get a varsity win," Warriors co-head coach Mike Boran said. "It was one of those matches where the team score was going to go our way, but we still wanted to wrestle well.

"We are wrestling really well for the most part. Last week, we were up in Bemidji and we wrestled six dual meets and it was like anything and it was up and down. We had some really good dual meets that we wrestled pretty well and we had some meets where we didn't wrestle very well. That's the kind of competition we want this time of year. That's what makes us better."

Cole Kubesh registered a 10-1 major decision and the rest of Brainerd's wins came from forfeits as it improved to 5-1 in the conference and 9-6 overall.

"They have a lot of open weights right now and a lot of kids that aren't really ready for that varsity experience and that's why they left them open," said Boran. "But the ones we did get we wrestled very well and even Andy had a really good kid. He's ranked second in the state so he's no slouch. We knew that, but we want to wrestle. We didn't want to win by a forfeit there so we put him out there and the best guy won and that was the other guy tonight, but other than that we got some nice wins for the matches we wrestled."

Boran echoed Schlosser's feeling about claiming a record by forfeit although he was hoping to do it in Brainerd.

As for Schlosser, he will get the school record soon. The Warriors head to Champlin Park for a dual meet tournament Saturday.

"When I do get the record, it's going to feel good," Schlosser said. "It's going to be exciting."

Brainerd 70, St. Cloud Apollo 4

106: Cole Ostrowski (Brd) forfeit

113: Chad Orsburn (Brd) pinned Trevor Schroeder 1:07

120: Cole Kubesh (Brd) maj. Dec. Tanner Blommer 10-1

126: Kyle Patnode (Brd) forfeit

132: Tucker Peterson (Brd) forfeit

138: Max Boran (Brd) forfeit

145: Peter Nelson (SCA) maj. Dec. Andy Schlosser 8-0

152: Jacob Berg (Brd) forfeit