By Rich Winter

605 Sports

When the powers that be gathered for seeding meetings for the Mid Dakota Monster wrestling tournament, they weren’t quite sure what to do with Todd County junior Rocky Wiedman. Not having wrestled in 2020-2021 because of COVID-19, Falcon coach Josh Dean noted coaches just don’t know who the 220-pound wrestler is. 

“He’s the No. 7 seed and everyone ahead of him were either state qualifiers or placers,” Dean said. “We didn’t have any head-to-head matches and no common opponents so we didn’t have the criteria to seed him higher.”

Rewind two years ago and Wiedman was starting to find a groove as a 160-pound freshman. Ranked in the top-12 most of the season, Wiedman came up just short of making the state tournament. 

And then COVID-19 hit. 

“Not doing anything last year absolutely killed our wrestling program,” Dean said. “We are down to only having six kids out for wrestling.” 

Not having wrestled since the spring of 2020 Wiedman opened the season with a match against Cole Pranger from Mount Vernon/Plankinton/Corsica-Stickney. 

“He lost 7-1 to a kid that was ranked No. 2 in Class B at the time and he hasn’t wrestled in nearly two years,” Dean said. “He missed out on mat-time and matches and at the bare minimum qualifying for state last year. 

The following weekend Wiedman wrestled at the Rapid City Invitational. 

“He started the tournament off by beating the No. 1 seed, a state runner-up from Wyoming,” Dean said. 

After two day of competition against elite competition from Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota, Wiedman finished in 8th-place.

“He was missing some mat time and his consistency wasn’t there,” Dean said. “He should have placed higher, he didn’t lose to bad kids, but I thought we lost some matches we could have won.” 

Wiedman did win the Lakota Nation Invitational tournament in December. 

Dean noted that Wiedman said one of the differences between wrestling at 160 pounds and 220 pounds is “some of the kids at 220 don’t have the gas tank that smaller kids have.” 

Wiedman has a motor.

“His greatest attribute is his mentality,” Dean said. “He could be losing by 10 points and he’ll just keep coming at you.” 

Wiedman, 9-4 on the season, opens the Mid Dakota Monster with a match against Elijah Bouchtee of Pierre.