Luther High School wrestler John Poppie pushed his personal winning streak to 12 consecutive matches at 215 pounds, while Billly Schomberg at 103 finished third at Saturday's Appleton Fox Valley Lutheran Invitational.
Poppie was particularly dominant on his way to his second consecutive event championship, including a pin of Winneconne's Clint Schaffer in 18 seconds in the championship match. Luther head coach Jon Benrud said the pin could have even been faster, in as fast as 10 seconds, though a ball-and-chain after a shot was plenty good for the fall.
Poppie advanced to the final with a pin of Wrightstown's Jestin Demerath with 15 seconds remaining in the first period. Poppie's two pins in 2 minutes, 3 seconds were the second-fastest in the event.
Schomberg also recorded two pins, including in 52 seconds in the third-place match. He opened with pin with four seconds to go in the second period.
In between, Schomberg had a decent chance to reach the finals, Benrud said. A stalling call put Schomberg ahead 2-1, before a return stalling call tied the match at 2-2, with a late takedown producing a 6-2 decision.
“He wrestled well and is coming along,” Benrud said of Schomberg. “Having all of those kids (Schomberg, Mitch Larson at 112, Sam Hendrickson at 119 and Andrew Thiher) fighting for the same spots has only helped us. Sam and Andrew really go at each other.”
Hendrickson rebounded from a pin one minute in against Winneconne's Sam Miller to win his final two matches. He won both matches by first-period fall, with 18 and seven seconds remaining, respectively.
Larson matched Hendrickson, rebounding from an opening-match rout with two pins. Larson recorded the first of his two falls with six seconds remaining.
While Hendrickson and Larson each recorded two pins and 2-1 days, Poppie and Schomberg were the only two of the Knights 12 entrants to win opening-round bouts. Travis McDonald at 171 matched Hendrickson and Larson, rebounding from an opening-round pin with a fall seven seconds short of the midpoint of his second match and a 7-1 win over Lomria's Kyle Jansen.
“We saw a lot of leg stuff Saturday,” Benrud said. “We knew what we needed to do to counter it, but it still caused us troubles. That's a style we don't see much on this side of the state.”
Poppie, Hendrickson, Schomberg and Larson were four of the 17 wrestlers who earned an event-high two pins. Hendrickson's total pin time of 3:35 from sixth among that group.
Paul Mitchell at 125 and Josiah Loeffelholz at 145 also recorded on-the-mat wins; Mitchell by fall 43 seconds and Loeffelholz in a 7-1 decision. also competing for Luther were Ben Schmidt at 130, Tom Stanton at 135, Joey Johnson at 145, Dan Fehr at 152 and Dieter Henckel at 189. Benrud said Stanton was unable to compete at his best due to an illness.
LHS competes in its final regular-season meet Saturday at 10 a.m. at Independence. Poppie and Whitehall's Wes Dubiel could see one another in the finals at 215, with the two splitting two matches over the past two years.
Luther was to host its final regular-season dual Thursday against North Crawford-Sencea, but the dual was postponed when Thursday's classes at LHS were postponed due to cold conditions.

