By Rich Winter

605 Sports

All season long the Winner Area wrestlers have been an afterthought in Class B wrestling. The Warriors are always good but at the beginning of the season Winner Area had a tough time cracking the top-five in Dakota Grappler’s weekly team rankings. 

This 2023/2024 might be one of the best coaching jobs by Spencer Novotny and Jayd Schuyler. This week Konnor Osborn jumped to the No. 3 ranking (132). Gus Bartels (150) premiered at No. 8 this week. Jude Sargent (157) made his first appearance in the rankings this week. Kellen Cihak-Brozik (175) has improved dramatically all season and is now the No. 6 ranked grappler in his weight class. 

Winner Area got a big boost in the seed points this week after defeating Philip/Kadoka Area/Wall Badlands Brawlers 38-37. That win kept the Warriors undefeated, 8-0 and on top of the Class B dual rankings. 

(All rankings provided by Dakota Grappler and all teams must have at least eight duals during the season to qualify for the state wrestling team dual tournament.

As of Jan. 25 here are your Class B dual rankings including seeding points:

Winner Area, 8-0, 46.250

Bon Homme/Avon, 5-0, 45.800

Philip/Kadoka Area/Wall Badlands Brawlers, 8-1, 45.111

Canton, 9-0, 44.333

Kimball/White Lake/Platte-Geddes, 8-0, 44.000

Clark/Willow Lake, 12-0, 43.250

Custer, 8-3, 43.182

Miller/Highmore-Harrold, 8-1, 43.111

Stanley County, 6-1, 42.857

Kingsbury County, 7-1, 42.625

Big duals coming up in Class B

• Kingsbury County at Miller/Highmore-Harrold on Thursday, Jan. 25 sees Class B’s No. 10 team vs. Class B’s No. 8 team. 

• While Canton is currently the No. 4 seed the C-Hawks are 9-0 and the team that everyone in the field doesn’t want to see until the finals. Canton has dual matches with Madison and Dell Rapids on Jan. 30.

The Class B state wrestling tournament will be held on Feb. 10 at the Watertown Civic Arena.