The WACO wrestling team has seen its share of success this season, the most of which came this past weekend at districts.  Now, for the first time in recent memory, WACO will have multiple wrestlers at the state tournament in the form of Jonah Clark and Jalen Collins.

Clark has wrestled at 120 all year and has earned a 33-9 record in the process.  He was seeded number one at the sectional round, which gave him an automatic spot in the first place match.  He won that match by pinning Van Buren’s Bruce Claman in a minute and 48 seconds.

The very next weekend, he won his semifinal match and lost in the finals, but no wrestle-back was necessary after his semifinal opponent, Tyler Sieman of West Branch, won the third-place match.  This gave Clark the win in the second place match by rule, giving the sophomore his first trip to the state tournament.

Collins, a junior this season with a 35-9 record, will be representing WACO at 126 pounds after taking second at Saturday’s district round.  He rolled through sectionals the weekend before, pinning his semifinal opponent in 37 seconds to advance to the first-place match, which he won over Cardinal’s Jacxon Behrle via 1 17-5 major decision.

This past Saturday, Collins pinned his semifinal opponent near the end of the second period to advance to the first-place match.  There he saw Wapello’s Daniel Meeker, who is ranked fourth in the most recent Predicament rankings, losing by a 15-0 tech fall.  Unlike Clark, Collins did see a wrestle-back: a rematch from the first-place match at sectionals the week before.  But he got the better of Behrle again, this time pinning him in 2:57 to secure his spot in the state tournament.

Clark and Collins will each have their first round matches on Thursday afternoon at Wells Fargo Arena.