To lead off the night, the Iowa Falls-Alden girls wrestling team won their first ever home dual and inaugural rivalry dual against Hampton-Dumont-CAL. The #19(2A)Hampton-Dumont-CAL boys led from the first match to the final whistle to earn a conference rivalry win over Iowa Falls-Alden. The Cadets girls won 42-18 and the Bulldog boys won 49-19, as aired on 104.9 KLMJ on Thursday.
In the girls dual, IFA won one match by forfeit and five matches via fall including Ivy Sanders at 120, Issa Borbon-Torres at 125, Brooklyn Gehling at 130, Natasha Martinez-Garcia at 145 and Kynnedy Gunderson at 170. H-D-CAL won one match by forfeit and two matches by fall including Maren Subbert at 235 and Juliette Koch at 135.
IFA Head Coach Eric Hoffman on entering their first dual of ‘25 and the performance of Gehling and Gunderson.
“We had a really good winter break of workouts and I was excited to see how we were going to perform tonight. It was a really exciting atmosphere, and I’m glad the girls went out and performed well,” says Hoffman. “Brooklyn Gehling, she’s improved from a 1-14 record last year. She’s really taking a leadership role and works hard every day to get there. Kynnedy Gunderson, is our returning state qualifier and is a great leader for us. Her season has started kind of slow, but she’s really picking up steam right now. She had a great performance tonight.”
In the boys dual, IFA won one match by Fall for Sam Robinson at 126, one by major decision for Heaton Mulford (13-2) at 150, and three by decision for Kolbe Hansen (14-7) at 120, Trevor Bailey (5-4) at 190 and Trayvahn Williams (7-1) at 285. H-D-CAL won three matches by Fall including Maddox Strother at 106, Colin Bird at 165, Maddon Evans at 215, two by technical fall including Taylor Mahler (17-2) at 157 and Sean Heilskov (17-0) at 175, and one by decision for Carter Janssen (5-1) at 113.
H-D-CAL Head Coach Patrick Hansen on top Bulldog performers and three pillars of team identity.
“Maddon Evans, I’ve been working a lot on, he lets people slow him down. He wrestles to his caliber and he needs to get after it a little more. He did it tonight and that was nice to see. Colin Bird was in a dog fight there with the Sanders kid. Not everybody’s just gonna roll over and take it. He put up a fight and Colin came out on top. Taylor Mahler had a nice match,” says Hansen. “All I care about is that we have a good attitude, we give max effort and we keep our heads on our shoulders. As long as we do that and we check those three boxes, everything else will work itself out.”
The H-D-CAL girls (5-5) and the IFA girls (4-6) will both take part in Trojan Tangle hosted by West Marshall on Saturday. The H-D-CAL boys (7-4) will be at Clarion-Goldfield-Dows dual tournament on Saturday. The IFA boys (7-3) will be at PCM Invite on Saturday.
IFA Girls Head Coach Eric Hoffman:
H-D-CAL Girls Head Coach Brittany Stevens:
IFA Boys Head Coach Scott Patton:
H-D-CAL Boys Head Coach Patrick Hansen:
