The Clarion-Goldfield-Dows boys wrestling team outperformed its seed to place third in Class 2A at Saturday’s IHSAA State Dual Team Tournament at Xtream Arena, as aired on 104.9 KLMJ. The #6 Cowboys beat #3 Sergeant Bluff-Luton 35-32 in the quarterfinal, fell to #2 West Delaware 38-31 in the semifinal, and defeated #5 Williamsburg 42-31 in the third place dual.
Nine matches into the opener against previously undefeated Sergeant Bluff-Luton, the Cowboys held a 30-6 lead. The Warriors won four of the final five matches to trim the deficit, but a technical fall by Caleb Seaba at 157 put the dual out of reach. Among the highlights were pins by JT Kelso at 285, Angel Cortes at 113 and Linden Phetxoumphone at 120.
“Sergeant Bluff-Luton has some very talented kids, and we knew it was gonna be a competitive close dual,” Head Coach Dillon Anderson says. “We got a little bit lucky in the sense we got the flip in the beginning, so it allowed us to move people where we wanted them, which was huge, but at the end of the day, I still think even if we didn’t have that, we would’ve been right there with them. So we did really well, took care of business on a very good team that was projected to win, right? They’re the three seed, we’re the six seed, so coming in as the underdog and upsetting them is always fun. And then we already knew that we had beaten West Delaware once already in the beginning of the year. So we knew that we could hang there and beat them potentially as well and fell a little short. But I’m really proud of the guys. I thought we wrestled really tough and gave every opportunity to do really well down here, so it was fun.”
Against West Delaware, the Cowboys built a 25-6 lead. But the Hawks rallied to win seven of the final eight matches, and it was decided with a pin in the final match of the dual.
Against Williamsburg, the Cowboys won five of the first six matches, including three falls and a technical fall for a 26-6 lead. The teams went back-and-forth the rest of the way, but a technical fall by Charlie Campbell at 175 sealed the win and the third place finish with two matches left.
“We regrouped, basically just told them, look, you know, we’ve got to go for the next best thing, which is third place. And I think every kid just kind of looked at me and said, yeah, we’re going to do that. Like, let’s go out and fight for it. There’s no reason why we can’t get it. And so, yeah, we went out there and we fought our butts off and gave us an opportunity to put ourselves in a good position versus a good Williamsburg team. A lot of these duals come down to matchups, and Algona and Williamsburg maybe don’t match up as well. That’s why they had a little closer dual. We kind of put it on Williamsburg a little bit. So it’s kind of fun how that all works out. It’s a lot of strategy that people don’t see.”
Kelso, Linden Phetxoumphone, Adrian Phetxoumphone, Cortes and Campbell each went 3-0.
The Cowboys have finished the dual season at 25-7.
Dillon Anderson interview:
