Musing on the most difficult decisions for this week:

• Tanner Urlaub currently stands unbeaten with wins over Josh Irwin and Zach Broadwell.  2X state champion Cael Schalesky is 1-1 with Irwin but has yet to face Urlaub head to head.  As a result. an argument could be made for Schalesky at #1, but Urlaub’s body of work is very strong at this stage of the year.
• Lisbon’s 106 pounders would be ranked 3rd and 5th if I could rank two class B wrestlers from the same team at a weight.  Because Class B doesn’t allow unattached wrestlers at the state tournament, I don’t do that.  Though Nielsen has been the unattached wrestler all season, his performance at the Central Cass Lettermen’s, including wins over teammate Boeden Greenley (with whom he is now 1-1) and Gunnar Mogen, make him the higher ranked wrestler and thus the one I chose to rank.
• Though Kyle Burwick wrested 120 at the Rumble, he was back to 126 for the Hettinger Classic and I can’t imagine we will see him at 120 any more this season (I have no inside information).  The 120 pound weight class is an odd one because the top three are all fantastic, and they have yet to wrestle one another. Though Wolding did defeat Madrigal last season, I don’t make a practice of using head-to-head from previous years.  Madrigal get the top seed for being a finalist at the same weight class last season, and I went with Wolding over Thompson because Wolding has a state title to his name.
• Napoleon 145 Jacob Bitz made his first appearance in a tournament at the Bismarck Rotary over the weekend.  Though his body of work is small and he has no head to heads, he is a returning third place finisher at the same weight class and as a result is deserving of the top spot until beaten.  Lisbon’s Jordan Sours has two losses on the year, wins over Eli Hackman and Jake Herr, and is one of the few wrestlers this season to make a hard run at undefeated Bismarck Demon Devin Steidler.  If I was doing pound for pound rankings right now, he would probably be the first or second best freshman in the state across both classes.