The jig is up; wrestling has concluded and another season is in the record books. Not surprisingly another state champion has been crowned hailing from Cannon Falls. Senior Paul Fitterer continues the CFHS streak to three years running. Ryan Epps, the other wrestler who advanced to state for his third time placed fourth due to what Coach Flodeen reflects on as, “… a real tough draw” versus the projected number one wrestler in the semifinals. One who came very close to advancing to state was Nathan Melhouse who placed third in the section tournament, just one spot away from making the cut. The team made a solid showing considering they almost had a third of their entire team in the state tournament.

Along with the end of a season comes the loss of players. Section participating seniors Fitterer, Melhouse, and Cole Zimmerman will be sorely missed with their experience and wrestling prowess; and with these loses Flodeen projects the team will once again be unable to fill their roster next year. This does not make the conclusion that the team will be any different however. The wrestlers currently on tap are making substantial progress given their age. Erwin Strelow, Peter Fitterer, Haden Strain, and Gavin Gates will all receive another year of maturation plus offseason wrestling which will aid immensely in their future performance.  Flodeen also adds that if Gates didn’t break his arm and miss the season previous to this one, “[that] probably was the difference from him going to state this year.” This year’s team performance on paper was admittedly a bit lacking, but that cannot be solely blamed on team numbers.

According to The Guillotine, two of the top three teams in the AA category are from section 1; there are also four teams from this section listed in the top of the “Lean and Mean” list indicating their lack of player numbers, making the section arguably the toughest in the state. That’s not to say CF wrestling just rolled over and died when they faced these teams. Quite the opposite. Flodeen believes that this year’s team was one of the most competitive he’s ever had and certainly faced adversity from both competition and lack of teammates extremely well. “Nobody wanted to give an inch to the other guy,” Coach Flodeen states proudly of this Cannon Falls wrestling team and now that this season has finished, looking back the players did in fact form into something strikingly similar to wrestling geniuses