North Mahaska used three champions and two second and third place finishes to give chase to Belle Plaine Saturday at the South Iowa Cedar League wrestling championships. Belle Plaine won the meet with 241 points. North Mahaska edged Sigourney-Keota with 169 and S-K had 168.
Ryan groom at 106 pounds, Joel DeJong at 113 and Trace Goemaat at 285 all earned the top spot on the podium. Sophomore Hunter Wernli and senior Wyatt Van Weelden at 138 and 170 respectively, earned runnerup spots. Charlie Goemaat at 120 and Matt German at 126 took third.
Ryan Groom
Groom scored a 2-0 decision over Sigourney-Keota’s Reanah Utterback in the finals match. Groom, a freshman, had a first round bye then pinned Belle Plaine’s Jackson Weeda in 33 seconds to advance to meet Utterback.
DeJong, a sophomore, stuck Hunter Van Wyk of Lynnville-Sully in 1:05 and took 28 seconds to dispose of Hunter Henry of Belle Plaine. Colfax-Mingo’s Cason Fitch was the top seed and received a first round bye. DeJong took control of the match and scored a 9-1 major decision over Fitch.
Joel DeJong
The third champion came at 285 when senior Trace Goemaat moved through his bracket as the top seed. He scored a 7-2 decision in his first contested match over Benjamin Squires of Lynnville-Sully. In the finals, Goemaat took down Garrett Hoyt of Iowa Valley in the second period for a pin in 3:12.
Trace Goemaat
Wernli battled his way to the podium with a win over Owen Desrochers of Montezuma by pin. He then pinned Lynnville-Sully’s Trevor Van Wyk in 2:47 to earn the right to face top seed Wade Sankot of Belle Plaine. Wernli went the distance with Sankot coming up short in an 8-0 major decision.
Van Weelden was the No. 2 seed and pinned Jeremy Reineke of Belle Plaine in 1:52. In his second match he duplicated the time in pinning Montezuma’s Brett Plants. Jack Clarahan of Sigourney-Keota lived up to the top billing winning by pin in 2:42.
Freshman Charlie Goemaat (120) won his third place match with a 5-1 decision over Joe Randall of Belle Plaine. He was followed by 126-pounder, senior Matt German, who won an exciting 18-15 decision over Carter Hassebroek of Iowa Valley.
Gage Reis placed fourth, Dylan Meland and Jakob Clark was fifth and Andy Knockel placed sixth.
North Mahaska is scheduled to wrestle at Moravia Tuesday.
Team Scores
Belle Plaine 241, 2. North Mahaska 169, 3. Sigourney-Keota 168, 4. Iowa Valley, Marengo 154, 5. Lynnville-Sully 105, 6. English Valleys-Tri County 97, 7. BGM, 75, 8. Colfax-Mingo 66, 9. Montezuma 57, 10. HLV 18