Peterson handling leadership role through toughness and accountability

By Andrew Harrington
Posted 12/31/24

Leading the Ellsworth wrestling team is no small honor, as the historic team has totaled eight Team State Championships and has two of the 29 Wisconsin four-time Individual State Champions. As a …

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Peterson handling leadership role through toughness and accountability

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Leading the Ellsworth wrestling team is no small honor, as the historic team has totaled eight Team State Championships and has two of the 29 Wisconsin four-time Individual State Champions. As a captain, this is a challenge 106-pound senior Austin Peterson is taking head on.

He feels he has improved both as a wrestler and as a leader since his freshman year, and he is ready to reach his lofty individual and team goals.

“As a captain I like to try and keep our team motivated to keep doing well if we are doing well,” Peterson said. “If we’re not doing the best, we like to try and bring them up and get their hopes back up again.”

Over four years of high school, Peterson has found the mentality, skill and leadership to become a captain.

“What makes him good is he’s just a tough, hard-nosed kid,” Head Coach Carson Huppert said. “He works really hard in the wrestling room.”

As a captain, Huppert said Peterson has the respect of the rest of the team, and there is a reason for that.

“He’s really good at keeping the kids accountable, making sure they’re coming to practice, he’s a good vocal leader and like I said before, he’s tough, so he doesn’t just talk the talk, he actually does what he preaches as well,” Huppert said.

Peterson had a chance to show the state what he is made of at the Northern Badger tournament in River Falls that featured 44 teams over the weekend and he took advantage. He pinned his way through his first three matches without even seeing a third round to make the championship.

In the final, he fell behind 11-0 in the first period after a tough maneuver allowed Taylor Underwood of Marathon to rack up some early back points.

He had some chances to get a pin late, but could not quite flip Underwood to his back and fell 14-4.

Peterson is now 12-3 on the year including a win at the Stanley-Boyd Pre-Holiday Scramble and second place finishes at sizable tournaments in the Northern Badger and Ellsworth Invitational.

“He just improves each year, day in and day out,” Huppert said. “Things are starting to come together. Things are starting to click a little bit better for him. Like I said, his toughness and his work ethic has gotten him to this point.”

Prior to the event, Huppert said it will be a good gauge to where Peterson is at, but that does not mean he will stay where he is at for the rest of the season.

“He is one of the favorites to win the thing, so we’ve got high hopes for him and we hope to see him on top of the podium at the end of it,” Huppert said.

Huppert said no matter the result, Peterson has every opportunity to be an even better wrestler months from now. The tough mentality is brought with Peterson to practice every day, allowing him to be an even more improved wrestler when the postseason comes around.

“When we come to big tournaments like this, it kind of shows us how good we are as a team cause there’s team scores and it shows individually who’s there and who’s not,” Peterson said.
Although the Northern Badger finish was a solid feat, he knows there will always be improvements to be made.

“I definitely need to get better on my feet,” Peterson said. “We could work on our team building skills and get better as a team too.”

Ellsworth wrestling, Ellsworth Panthers, Austin Peterson, Middle Border