Winter sports got underway last week when the junior high wrestlers travelled to Belle Plaine for a wrestling scramble. The boys and girls wrestled 30 finals matches winning 22 of them.
Lily Briggs picked up a win in the girls’ division with a decision over teammate Serenity Van Wyk. Briggs lost an 8-2 decision to Belle Plaine’s Claire Niehaus. Van Wyk also lost to Niehaus by pin in 1 minute 8 seconds. Seven junior wrestlers picked up two wins. They included Nolan Schock, Bronx Freese, Cooper Sampson, Colton Shaffer, Luke Reed, Kenton Stout and Aydan Groom.
- Schock won both of his by pin. He stuck Jack Manos of Center Point-Urbana in 36 seconds and Belle Plaine’s Gregor Beck in :28.
- Freese pinned Cain Austin of CPU in 1:32 and scored a 5-4 decision over CPU’s Jessie Whitehead for his two finals wins.
- Cooper Sampson spent just over a minute in his two finals matches. He pinned CPU’s Ethan Bergner in 30 seconds and Brody Hosek of Belle Plaine in :47.
- Colton Shaffer pinned COPU wrestler Charlie Larson in 1:53 and did the same to Tristan Pirkl of HLV in 1:16.
- Luke Reed had a tough battle before decisioning CPU’s Parkers Pearson, 12-5. He pinned another CPU wrestler, Alex Ditch, in 3:40.
- Kenton Stout also spent less than two minutes on the mat in finals. He pinned Tyson Kriegel of Iowa Valley in 17 seconds and took1:36 to pin another Iowa Valley matman,
- Patrick Peach, in 1:36.
- Aydan Groom also won both his matches by pin. He scored a fall over Abe Brustkerg from CPU in 2:23 and Kriegel in 1:46.
- Wallace Bankes pinned Iowa Valleys’ Wyatt Compton in 18 seconds.
- Logan Van Zee decisioned Landon Kilgard of Iowa Valley 6-4.
- Elijah Voss scored an 8-5 decision over Jaxon Smith of HLV.
- Nathan DeJong scored his finals win over Colton Sabin of CPU, 6-2.
- Jeremiah Van Wyk pinned Compton in 19 seconds.
- Others with single wins in the finals included Cooper Scholtus with a pin of Wyatt Mead of CPU in 39 seconds.