Coverage of Appleton East, Appleton North, Appleton West, Fox Valley Lutheran and Xavier high school sports.

Appleton North's Jake Stoffel, left, Blake Miller and Brock Arndt qualified for the WIAA state individual wrestling tournament with top-two finishes at a Division 1 sectional on Saturday at Kimberly. (Photo courtesy of Appleton North High School Wrestling)
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Three Appleton North wrestlers, one from Fox Valley Lutheran earn state berths with top finishes at WIAA sectionals

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AppletonSportsPage.com

Three wrestlers from Appleton North and another from Fox Valley Lutheran will be heading to the state tournament later this week after competition at WIAA individual sectionals on Saturday.

The top two finishers in each weight class in Division 1 and top three in Divisions 2-3 at the sectionals qualify for the 2024 WIAA State Individual Wrestling Tournament, which will be held Thursday, Feb. 22, through Saturday, Feb. 24, at the Kohl Center in Madison.

Division 1 quarterfinals and preliminaries in Divisions 2 and 3 will be held Thursday night.

DIVISION 1
Appleton North’s Jake Stoffel (38-0) will go for his second-straight state title after he won the 175-pound championship at the Division 1 sectional at Kimberly with a 10-3 victory over Brady Sprangers of Kaukauna in the championship match. Stoffel was the 152-pound champion last year, finishing the season with a 44-1 record.

Also capturing a sectional title for the Lightning was Brock Arndt (27-1), who won the 285-pound championship with a pin in 5:29 of Kaukauna’s Nehemiah Lendobeja.

Appleton North senior Blake Miller (10-3) finished second at 215 pounds to also earn a state tournament berth. Miller lost in the championship match to Ausitn McHugh of Hortonville 9-6 and had to survive a second-place wrestleback, where he pinned Pulaski’s Elliott Karcz in 1:37.

Appleton West’s Collin Evers finished fourth at 144 pounds.

In the girls tournament, Appleton North’s Paige Sisongkham finished third at 100 pounds

Click here for complete Kimberly Sectional results, courtesy of trackwrestling.com

DIVISION 2
Fox Valley Lutheran sophomore Austin Kufner earned a spot in the state tournament with a third-place finish at 150 pounds in a Division 2 sectional at Oconto Falls.

Kufner won a third-place match over John Faulkner of Xavier, 6-1, before dropping a second-place wrestleback to Wrightstown’s Jacob Durocher, 16-3.

Click here for complete Oconto Falls Sectional results, courtesy of trackwrestling.com