Laker Wrestling Team Travels To Staples for Conference Meet Friday Afternoon

Detroit Lakes, MN (KDLM) – The Detroit Lakes Laker wrestling team is back on the road this afternoon, traveling to Staples-Motley for the Midstate Conference Meet.

“This is going to be a good meet for us,” says head coach Rob Ullyott. “There are two really good teams there, and three average teams there. I think we’re somewhere in the middle of all of it.”

The 1:00 meet in Staples will feature Midstate Conference foes Crosby-Ironton, Aitkin, Staples-Motley, Park Rapids, and Pequot Lakes/Pine River-Backus.

“Pequot Lakes is the defending Section champion from our section last year and they’re actually better this year than they were last year,” says Ulloytt. “I think they’re ranked fourth in the state right now. They always put a nice team out on the mat. We also have Aitkin this year. Aitkin was a Class A team last year, but moved up to AA with the section realignment last spring, and this may be the best Aitkin team I’ve ever seen. They put a good kid out at every weight, and they’re ranked in the state as well. I would think they’re in the mix to win Section 7AA this year, so we could potentially have two state-qualifying teams at our conference meet.”

The Lakers have wrestled nine teams over the last eight days, and are 5-4 over that span, beginning with winning their first-ever dual meet at the new Lakeshirts Fieldhouse on January 13th against section-rival Perham.

“It was kind of a strange meet,” says Ullyott. “It was home, but it didn’t feel like home. We hadn’t wrestled in there before. We had a youth jamboree that night before the matches as well, so we had all of our elementary kids in there and Perham brought theirs over, too. There was a lot of wrestling that night with the elementary kids, then JV, then Varsity. It gave us some time to learn the gym…where is this scoreboard at, which way do we come out of the locker room…things that usually come naturally at a home meet.  But that place (Lakeshirts Fieldhouse) is an absolutely amazing facility. I’ve been here in Detroit Lakes for 30 years and we’ve been talking about it for a long time. It’s a great thing for our school district and for our community.”

The Lakers wrestled six teams in two days at the Rick Lee Invitational in Bemidji last weekend, falling to Bemidji, UNC, Long Prairie-Grey Eagle, Tracey-Milroy on the first day of the tournament…all top-10 ranked teams in their individual classes. Day Two saw the Lakers pick up wins against Grand Forks Central and Blackduck-Cass Lake-Bena.

The Lakers braved the winter weather last Tuesday to travel to Long Prairie for a quadrangular, picking up two more wins against Minnewaska Area and section opponent Fergus Falls. Having wrestled LPGE four days earlier in Bemidji, the Lakers and Thunder elected not to wrestle again.

And this afternoon, the Lakers are on the mats again.

“I’m excited to get a shot at Pequot on Friday just to see what they have, “says Ullyott. “We know a lot of their better kids, but these are big Section matches, too. The great thing about our sports is not only can you advance your team to state, but you can advance individual wrestlers down as well. Some of the individual matchups in that Dual pool could be huge come the individual section tournament.”