East Mills wrestlers struggle at the state meet
It was a tale of two days at the Iowa State Wrestling Tournament for East Mills.
The Wolverines opened the Class 1A tournament strong, winning three of four first round matches in near-dominating fashion with Luke Stortenbecker, Josh Hopkins and Anthony Ossman all moving into the quarterfinals.
Day 2 was a different story.
All three Wolverines struggled in their second round matches and finished their tournaments without medals with two losses each in the consolation bracket Friday morning.
“It was tough, and when you look at it, we almost went 4-for-4 the first day,” said East Mills coach Claude Lang who brought four qualifiers to state for the first time in school history. The Wolverines’ fourth state qualifier, 220-pound Nick Perkins lost his opening two matches on Thursday.
“We had a good game plan for each of (second round) matches and we executed them, but couldn’t get them done. Josh and Ossman and Luke just ran into tough matches.”
For Hopkins the 1-2 performance at state was particularly hard. The senior 152-pounder, who placed sixth last year, entered the state tournament 46-0 and ranked No. 3 in the Class 1A. After pinning South Central Calhoun’s Brody Goodman in 3:27 in the opening round, he struggled with ranked Connor Shulista of Alburnett in a tough quarterfinal match up.
“His confidence was sky high after that first pin and then in the second round, he met a kid who could counter everything we did,” Lang said. “He (Josh) had two good shots at him and he (Shulista) just stepped out of it. I can’t do that. He was a strong kid and it took a lot of Josh’s confidence.”
Shulista went on to pin Hopkins – the first fall the senior has suffered since his sophomore season – and win the 152-pound state title Saturday night. Hopkins lost his final consolation match in a 15-0 technical-fall to Drew Anderson of Westwood-Sloane.
Ossman, the Wolverines’ heavyweight, was wounded entering state after dislocating his right elbow in practice last Monday. The senior fought through the pain for a strong 5-1 win over Iowa Valley-Marengo’s Brody Goodman in the opening round win, but couldn’t find a way to pull out a victory on day two.
“He really dedicated himself after football to get his weight down and have a strong senior year,” Lang said of Ossman. “When you see a big guy like, at like 260 or 265 who can move like that and get takedowns it’s huge for the program. The guy is such a hard worker it makes guys around him work hard. He was all about getting to districts and getting to sectionals and then getting to state. To win that first one was fun for him.”
Ossman (43-5) dropped his quarterfinal match to Cole Jensen of Maple Valley-Anthon-Oto by fall and then was eliminated in a consolation round loss to Michael Young of AGWSR also by fall.
Stortenbecker downed Sigourney-Keota’s Lane Boender 2-1 in his opener before dropping second day matches to Tanner Hoyer of Alburnett 15-2 and Trey Brisker of Wilton by fall.
East Mills’ Perkins (39-11) dropped his opening round match to Matt Naig of Sibley-Ocheyedan and then was eliminated in the consolation bracket when he was pinned by Quinton Casteel of Moravia in 2:38.
Lang said the Wolverines’ early exit does nothing to diminish what has been a historically good season for the wrestling program after starting the season with a lot of questions and finishing with a school-record four state qualifiers.
“We knew we weren’t going to have anybody under the 132 pound weight class so that’s five weights so our dual record wasn’t going to be great,” said Lang, whose team finished with a dual record of 15-12. “But by Christmas we had every weight from 132 to heavyweight filled then we had a kid quit and two injuries so there was a big gap.
“But we faced tough competition and we had a strong group of seniors who’ve been on the mat a few years and we have quality kids. We went to a lot of tournaments with five guys and we nearly sent all of them to state. That’s great for this program.”