Ellsworth wrestling coach Mark Matzek likes the improvement he’s seeing from his team this season.

“We’re 20 practices away from Regionals as of today,” he said on Monday. “We’re gearing up for that, and I’ve seen a lot of very, very strong improvement throughout the team.”

The team is dedicated to working hard at practice and learning from its mistakes.

“We were taking our lumps early in the season, but the one thing about this team is that they like to work hard. Even though they have taken some losses, they don’t accept losing. They don’t like losing. They’re always looking for ways to improve and put themselves in a position to win,” said Matzek.

He’s hoping that hard work pays off 20 practices from now.

“I don’t know if our team is deep enough to make a run at the team state portion of the season. If we can stay healthy and guys continue to improve, we could maybe sneak our way in team sections and once we’re there, who knows what’s going to happen,” said Matzek.

The Middle Border Conference has been a battle this year. Ellsworth beat Amery before Christmas. Baldwin-Woodville has one loss and got the best of Ellsworth Thursday night, winning by just one point.

Matzek is hopeful that someone does the Panthers a favor and defeats B-W, which would mean that the Panthers could tie for the regular season league title. Ellsworth hosts a triangular with Prescott and St. Croix Central Thursday, with wrestling starting at 6 p.m.

“We let that one against Baldwin-Woodville slip away from us. We had a few pins we shouldn’t have that changed the outcome of the match. In the same breath, those guys are wrestling hard. They just got caught,” said Matzek. “I’ll say I’ve really enjoyed coaching this team this year. They don’t complain.”

The Baldwin-Woodville match finished with a 36-35 score. At 285, Jeremiah Johnson started with a pin in 1:19. Austin Peterson (106) and Noah Walker followed with pins. With a forfeit in there, Ellsworth was up 24-0. B-W trimmed that margin after the next three matches to 24-21 and took the lead with two pins. William Penn (150) won by technical fall and Ethan Veenendall (175) and Breken Young (215) won by decision to bring the Panthers to within that one-point margin of victory.

In its second match of the triangular, the Panthers handled Osceola, 48-24.

Peterson and Penn scored pins in that match.