By Paul Lecker

Sports Reporter

MADISON — A total of 15 local wrestlers will compete at the 2015 WIAA State Individual Wrestling Championships from Thursday through Saturday at the Kohl Center.

The tournament begins with preliminaries in Divisions 1, 2, and 3 and Division 1 quarterfinals on Thursday and will conclude with 14 weight-class championship matches in three divisions on Saturday night.

All six mats of the pre-finals matches and the three mats of the finals will be streamed live. The finals of each division will be streamed on foxsportswisconsin.com. All pre-finals matches will be streamed live on the WIAA.TV portal of the NFHS Network via a subscription. To subscribe and watch all the pre-finals on the internet, purchase your subscription at nfhsnetwork.com/subscribe/retail.

The championship finals for all divisions will be aired tape-delayed on Fox Sports Wisconsin. The Division 1 title bouts are scheduled to air March 16 at 7 p.m. The Division 2 championship matches will air March 21 at 9 p.m. The Division 3 championship matches will be shown on March 29 at 3 p.m.

Stratford has eight individual qualifiers, which is the tops in the Division 3 field and among the best of all teams at the state meet. Kaukauna in Division 1 and Ellsworth and Sparta in Division 2 also have eight wrestlers at the tournament.

The tournament boasts 20 former state champions, and 16 look to defend a title they won last year.

There are also 27 wrestlers who enter the tournament undefeated, including Stratford sophomore Mason Kauffman, who is 46-0 at 126 pounds.

Some information for this story was provided by the WIAA.

(Hub City Times Sports Reporter Paul Lecker is also the publisher of MarshfieldAreaSports.com.)

2015 WIAA State Individual Wrestling Championships

Feb. 26-28, Kohl Center, Madison

Thursday, Feb. 26

3 p.m. – Division 1 preliminaries
5:15 p.m. – Division 1 quarterfinals
7:15 p.m. – Division 2 & 3 preliminaries

Friday, Feb. 27

10 a.m. – Division 1 consolation matches
11:15 a.m. – Division 2 & 3 quarterfinals
1:45 p.m. – Division 1 consolation semifinals
2:45 p.m. – Division 2 & 3 consolation semifinals
7 p.m. – Semifinals, all divisions

Saturday, Feb. 28

11 a.m. – Consolation wrestlebacks, all divisions; followed by fifth-place and third-place matches in all divisions
6 p.m. – Championship matches, all divisions

First-round matchups for local wrestlers

Division 1 preliminaries

160 pounds: Mitch Hertel (26-1), Marshfield, vs. Austin Powell (43-1), Sauk Prairie.
195 pounds: Josh Lang (29-5), Marshfield, vs. Noah Martinez (35-7), Kettle Moraine.

Division 3 preliminaries

113 pounds: Bryce Shaw (26-18), Spencer, vs. Riley Cade (31-14), Westby.
120 pounds: Anthony Gliniecki (33-4), Stratford, vs. James Palmer (37-6), Boyceville.
132 pounds: Sam Wenzel (30-11), Stratford, vs. Bailey Slater (41-6), New Lisbon.
132 pounds: Tim Bauer (29-15), Spencer, vs. Frank Baker (40-6), Mineral Point.
145 pounds: Paul Willfahrt (41-5), Auburndale, vs. Brian Dowling (31-11), Oshkosh Lourdes.
160 pounds: Wyatt Weiler (41-7), Auburndale, vs. Andrew Johnson (30-9), Clear Lake.
195 pounds: Hunter Luepke (41-5), Spencer, vs. Ian Ruble (34-6), Clear Lake.
285 pounds: Tyson Kauffman (31-12), Stratford, vs. Brandon Klimek (23-10), Cashton.

Division 3 quarterfinals

106 pounds: A.J. Schoenfuss (43-2), Stratford, vs. Andrew Webb (32-7), Spring Valley/Elmwood, or Sawyer Sarbacker (33-12), Iowa-Grant/Highland.
113 pounds: Jeremy Schoenherr (39-2), Stratford, vs. Andrew Gunderson (37-6), Cadott, or Zachary Foth (41-11), Laconia.
126 pounds: Mason Kauffman (46-0), Stratford, vs. Max Maylor (41-9), Iowa-Grant/Highland, or Trey Lundequam (38-6), Cumberland.
182 pounds: Kamren Bornbach (38-3), Stratford, vs. Logan Mcabee-Thomas (26-11), Boyceville, or Austin Stebane (34-10), Brillion.
220 pounds: Hunter Kauffman (39-1), Stratford, vs. Derek Medearis (26-8), New Lisbon, or Austin Knopps (38-7), Whitehall.