A spot in the State Dual Team Tournament will be on the line Tuesday when the #14 (2A) Hampton-Dumont-CAL boys wrestling team joins #9 (2A) Clarion-Goldfield-Dows at the regional dual meet hosted by #8 (2A) Humboldt. It’ll air on 104.9 KLMJ.
The Bulldogs (21-8) will take on the Cowboys (21-6) in the semifinal. The winner will take on Humboldt (18-5) in the regional final.
Hampton-Dumont-CAL coach Patrick Hansen says the team’s body of work has it prepared for the opportunity to advance.
“We’re battle tested, like we’ve wrestled, I think of the top like 14 or 15 teams, I think we’ve wrestled like 10 of them, beat some of them, lost to some of them, just the way it goes,” Hansen says. “At one time we were like 4-3, and now to be 21-8, that just shows that we’re picking it up at the end of the year, getting our lineup figured out, getting everybody on board. And it’s a marathon, not a sprint. That’s what I always say to all the kids. It’s a sprint from here on out now, but it’s a marathon if you look at the whole body of work of the season. We’re ready for this last mile.”
The Cowboys went 2-0 against the Bulldogs in the regular season, winning the conference dual 35-34 and 40-32 at a home dual tournament.
“We were ranked higher all year, and toward the end of the year, they decided to rank us lower, so we didn’t get a host to regional duals,” Head Coach Dillon Anderson says. “So we’ve got a little chip on our shoulder, something to prove. We’re going to go out there and fight hard, and try to put ourselves in a good place to win the dual, obviously. But when you look at our body of work and who we’ve faced all year, the six losses that we’ve had, we’ve lost to four 3A teams that are in the top 10. And we’ve lost to two 2A teams that were number three and number one at the time in which we’ve lost to them. So you look at that, we’ve done really, really good work this season. And so I think it’d just be a rewarding experience to know that all of our hard work paid off.”
Coverage will start at 5:45 p.m., followed by the start of the dual at 6:00.
Patrick Hansen interview:
