You don’t have to tell the Ellsworth wrestling team it’s one of those years.

The program has been hard hit with quarantines and illness to start the year. Head Coach Mark Matzek is home recuperating from COVID-19 himself and wasn’t on hand last week for the first match of the season that Baldwin-Woodville won by a 52-21 margin on the Panthers’ home mat.

Matzek took some time Monday morning to talk about the state of wrestling in the pandemic.

“It’s a weird year. It’s really tough,” he said. “Last week, we had four varsity guys out, and we had other guys in the lineup that were out on quarantine that just came back. One of the kids who wrestled only had one practice, so he had practiced one time since February. We’re just trying to put together a lineup so we can continue to compete.”

That said, if the Panthers can get healthy, they’ll have a good season, though with WIAA restrictions, teams are allowed to wrestle just one dual meet a week with no structured weekend tournaments. Wrestlers can sign up to wrestle in up to two weekend tournaments on their own.

“We should have a solid team,” said Matzek. “We have quite a few juniors on the team. Last year, we started nine sophomores. Those sophomores are juniors. We have a few freshmen from last year that are sophomores this year, and are physically another year more mature. It’s exciting to see those guys.”

“And it’s fun to see our freshmen. They need experience as well,” Matzek said, relating to what his Augsburg College coach said. “He always used to say to improve, you need to compete. It makes sense. In the wrestling room, you’re wrestling the same guys. When you’re wrestling a different guy, you can see what improvements need to be make. If you have four or five matches on a Saturday, you can see where you need to make adjustments. You’re not able to do that right now.”

Thursday, Ellsworth wrestles at Somerset.

“They may only have six or seven guys on their entire team,” Matzek said. “Our guys aren’t going to improve if they don’t get that opportunity to compete.”

“This year is strange. That’s what I’m getting at,” he said. “It’s off in a bizarre world especially when I’m sitting at home and not in the wrestling room. This last weekend, we should have had the Ellsworth Invitational and we should have had our youth tournament Sunday.”

He said the team’s lone senior and one of the captains, Braden Matzek, put the season in perspective.

“He has a great perspective,” he said, “If I only get six or seven matches, I want to go six or seven and 0,” the coach said. “He’s been working his tail off and being a good captain in our room.”

Matzek is hopeful that the Middle Border Conference Meet, set for Jan. 23 in Osceola will go on.

“Hopefully we’re able to have that tournament, with a full lineup and making some improvements and adjustments, I think it will be a close race this year.

“I’m very impressed with the work ethic of our team. It’s fun coaching them,” he said. “Did we have some guys out last week, and is Baldwin a lot better than they have been in the past? Yes they are. Good for those guys and the work they’re doing. Amery has a nice team. St. Croix Central is really improved. It could be a three of four team ballet. It’s good for the sport.”

The varsity lineup for the first match was 106 Landon Lampman, freshman 113 William Penn, freshman 120 Cale Ekholm junior 132 Jakob McCabe freshman 138 Tyler Boley sophomore 145 Braden Matzek senior 152 John Gillespie junior 160 Zack Peterson sophomore 170 Eli Rohl junior 170 Anthony Madsen sophomore 182 Ryan Matzek junior 195 Ethan Hinrichs freshman 220 Ian Matzek junior 287 Kyle Anschutz junior

Photo by John McLoone.