Laconia's Hagner reflects on 100

Colton Hagner started wrestling when he was 4 years old.

He nearly gave the sport up his freshman year.

"I had kind of lost interest in the sport, and I just wanted more time for myself," Hagner said. "I stuck it out and I think it was the greatest decision I've made because wrestling has taught me so many lessons.

"Over the last four years, I poured my heart and soul into it."

That dedication helped Hagner reach the 100-career win mark over the holiday break at the "On the Water Classic" at UW-Oshkosh.

Hagner won his first three matches. The third was a 7-0 decision against Isaiah Nowak from Coleman and was his 100th win.

He said reaching that mark at such a tough tournament was cool, for there are teams from all three WIAA divisions that compete.

"It brings a whole 'nother level to the table," Hagner said. "You can tell there's stages in wrestling. It's a good time to have better competition and have that experience."

Hagner would go on to win two more matches at the tournament, finishing ninth out of 44 wrestlers at the 190-pound weight class. He beat two D1 wrestlers at the tournament, for he pinned both Jay Krueger from West Allis Nathan Hale and Brock Schmidt from Hortonville.

After coming up short in the postseason both his freshman and sophomore years, Hagner qualified for state as a junior, avenging a loss to Lomira's Isaiah Giese, who beat him at regionals a week earlier.

"It was kind of like a full circle moment," Hagner said. "It was pretty sweet."

Hagner finished runner-up in the conference at 175 pounds last year before cutting to 165 for regionals.

He lost 12-10 in sudden victory to Lomira's Easton Neuman. He won conference his sophomore year when he beat Giese 8-2 at 170.

Laconia's coaches Pat Coffeen and Zach Coffeen have obviously played a big part in Hagner's success on the mat.

"I grew up watching Zach when he was in high school," Hagner said. "So, he's always kind of been that older role model. Pat's been the coach for years and he's always been the old-school coach that's going to make the best out of you.

"I appreciate that because he's not going to sugarcoat anything, he's going to tell you what you need to do if you want to succeed and Zach's the same way. It's like a family, at moments it sucks, at moments you hate them, but most of the time, you love them."

In addition to the Coffeens, Hagner said his interest in wrestling was sparked in the prominent youth program at Laconia, where he said the coaches do everything possible to make the kids successful. He hopes he and the high school team can drum up more support to get the numbers back to where they used to be.

Hagner said playing sports at Laconia has been great, noting that the fans and people in the community love to support the high school teams and the success that usually comes with them.

"Growing up watching Laconia my whole life," Hagner said. "Watching the girls go to state, watching the baseball team go to state when I was younger, watching all the wrestlers go to state has been truly a blessing.

"Our fans our great, the wrestling family brought a bunch of people to state last year just for me and one of my teammates."

Hagner is a three-sport athlete and committed to play baseball at UW-Oshkosh in college.

He also played linebacker and fullback for Spartans football, leading the Flyway conference with 116 total tackles and 71 solo tackles. He was voted to the Flyway's first team defense.

Hagner said he focuses on every sport when it is in season and doesn't worry much about the others, but he said he's learned valuable lessons by competing in three different sports.

"It's huge just for the fact it makes you manage your time, it makes you manage your life," Hanger said. "They also help the other sports. Wrestling helps me for flexibility and speed for baseball while baseball builds into football and football into wrestling.

"I think it's great and I encourage people to do it."