Sophomore Davey Starks repeated as WIAC wrestling champion in the 125-pound championship Sunday in Stevens Point.

After drawing a first-round bye, Starks topped third-seeded Nick Mueller of UW-La Crosse, 16-11, in the semifinals. Starks, the No. 2 seed, defeated No. 1 seed Brian Olson of UW-Platteville, 10-7, in his title match.

Olson beat Starks once in high school and once this season in a conference meet.

“This was my payback,” Starks said. “I’ve been wrestling really well lately. Olson got fourth two years ago at nationals, so beating him gives me a boost of confidence.”

Starks will take his 25-8 season record into the NCAA Div. III nationals that are set for March 2 and 3 in Waterloo, Iowa.

“It would be nice to see Davey become an All-American,” coach Don Parker said. “He’s got the skills and the experience of being there last year. He shouldn’t have the first-time jitters.”

Starks will wrestle in a double elimination format at nationals. He won’t find out where he is seeded until he gets to Iowa.

Starks guesses that there will be at least 16 guys wrestling in the 125-pound weight class.

As a team, the Blugold grapplers had place winners in seven of the 10 weight classes, allowing them to place third as a team, which was their best finish in Blugold wrestling history.

Besides Starks, the other Blugold place winners included freshman Jake Lawrence, third at 141 pounds; freshman Jon Watson, third at 149 and senior Jake Cimino, fourth at 157.

Senior Ben Podoll took third in the 174-pound weight class; sophomore Adam Kolo, third at 184 and senior Pete Peterson, second at heavyweight.

“We all wrestled out of our minds,” Starks said. “The third-place finishers really helped us to score more points.”

UW-La Crosse, the three-time defending WIAC champion, is the second-ranked team in the nation.

With six individual champions, they easily won the team championship with 156 points.

“We wrestled the best we could have wrestled,” Parker said. “It was a super effort by our kids.”

The Blugolds wrestled without junior Travis Buchholz who was out with a knee injury that he suffered a week ago.

“We didn’t have a guy to fill the void,” Parker said. “Having only nine out of the 10 weight classes filled and still placing third shows the determination of our season.”

Parker was more than satisfied as he talked about his team’s season as a whole.

“We had a great season this year, especially for how young we were.”

The Blugold wrestlers are not yet finished with their season, as they still have Starks to wrestle in practice for the next two weeks.

“He gets a pretty good workout with a fresh guy wrestling him every few minutes for about an hour,” Parker said.