2008 Woodie Awards
Grapplers finish below
Luke Ryan
Issue date: 2/6/08 Section: Sports
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Nagel lost in a 5-2 decision to UW-Parkside's Kyle Becker in the semifinals of the 165-pound bracket. Nagel bounced back with a convincing 6-1 victory in his next match, but he lost in the next round to settle for fourth. While fourth place was a satisfying performance, a higher finish is what Nagel had in mind.
"I'm pretty happy how I wrestled," Nagel said. "It didn't turn out exactly how I wanted to, but overall I'm pretty happy about it."
Bautista had a similar fate in the 141-pound weight class as he lost in a close 5-4 decision. Overall, he went 4-2 in the tournament to move to 23-7 on the year. His semifinal loss was a difficult reality to accept, but Bautista sees bigger opportunities to seize in the future.
"It was a tough loss, but the losses are going to come and you have to live through them," Bautista said. "It was hard to take at first, but it's not like this was the national championship."
Nagel and Bautista combined for 28 of UW-Whitewater's 63 points. Also contributing to the 'Hawks' total were sophomore David Casper and junior Sean Evan, who each had fifth place finishes. While Head Coach Tim Fader was proud of their performances, he would like to see more top finishers out of his team.
"[The results] were kind of mixed," Fader said. "We had some guys who had some pretty good numbers. We had weight classes where we didn't score any points. It's hard to overcome that."
Fader wasn't the only one who thought there was room for improvement.
"I think we need to do better," Nagel said. "Our team didn't come out like we normally [would] have. It wasn't our best showing."
UW-La Crosse had one of its best showings at the invitational, as it won the meet with a total of 143 points.
UW-Whitewater travels to UW-Stevens Point on Friday and will head west to take on UW-Eau Claire Saturday.
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