Chasing a title

DELHI - The mats are heating up as the Maquoketa Valley wrestling team shoots for a piece of the conference title.

The Wildats came into last week undefeated in the Tri-Rivers Conference. On Thursday, the Wildcat traveled to Midland to take on Lisbon, Midland and North-Linn. They lost a tough battle to Lisbon, but came back to beat North-Linn and Midland.

'Coming into the night we thought we had a good chance of beating Lisbon and winning the regular season conference duals championship,” Coach Tim Andrews said. 'Due to some misfortunes, this did not happen and we learned a lot as a team that night.

'It was good to see the guys respond with the way we wrestled North-Linn and Midland.”

The Wildcats started off the night against Lisbon, which won 50-24. Steve Huber (pin), Ryan Parmely (forfeit), Greg Guetzko (pin) and Trevor Koopmann (pin) all won for the Wildcats.

Maquoketa Valley then defeated North-Linn, 63-9, getting wins from Huber (forfeit), Eric Heims (6-4 decision), Parmely (pin), Guetzko (pin), Tanner Parmely (forfeit), Mason Hermanson (forfeit), Carter Klostermann (6-1 decision), Zach Cornell (forfeit), Cole Kruse (pin), Dylan Wright (pin), Koopmann (pin) and Alec McDowell (forfeit).

The Wildcats finished the meet with a 60-21 win over Midland. Wrestlers who helped to get those 60 points were Ryan Parmely (forfeit), Kaleb Kruse (pin), Tanner Parmely (pin), Hermanson (pin), Klostermann (pin), Wright (pin), Koopmann (pin), McDowell (pin), Huber (forfeit) and Heims (forfeit).

On Saturday the Maquoketa Valley traveled to Cascade for its first individual tournament of the season. The Wildcats ended up taking second place - out of nine teams - with a score of 251.1 points. Other teams in the field were Cedar Rapids Washington, DeWitt Central, Cascade, Dubuque Senior, Mount Vernon, Central City, Midland and Northeast.

Andrews said the team had a pretty good day.

'Although there were a couple of matches that I thought should have ended up differently, we can use these couple matches to help fix mistakes and become better wrestlers from them,” he said. 'It's always good to come away with four champs, especially with two of them being underclassmen. This should be a good week of training for us and hopefully we can keep the momentum going and getting better every day.”

Maquoketa Valley had eight wrestlers finish in the top three. Champions were Wright (152 pounds), Koopmann (160), McDowell (170) and Ryan Parmely (220). All four were undefeated throughout the tournament. Wright and Koopmann had three pins each, McDowell had one pin and an 8-2 decision and Parmely had three pins and a technical fall.

Runners-up in the tournament were Tanner Parmely (120) and Huber (182). Both were 2-1 with two pins apiece.

Wrestlers who finished third Guetzko (106) and Heims (195). Guetzko was 1-2 with an 8-4 decision, and Heims was 2-1 with two pins.