The Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk grapplers begin the second half of the schedule tonight when they travel to Northeast Goose Lake for a River Valley Conference quadrangular against Camanche, Bellevue and the Rebels. Mid-Prairie comes into the 2021 portion of their schedule with a 4-6 dual record. The Hawks were last in dual action December 17th when they visited Mount Pleasant for a triangular with the Panthers and Ft. Madison. Mid-Prairie split at the event, beating the Panthers and falling to the Bloodhounds. Coming into the second half of the season, Mid-Prairie is led by a pair of 17 match winners in Ben Meader and Josh Wallington, with a combined 34-6 mark on the year.
Camanche enters tonight with a dual mark of 6-4. They wrestled at the Lettington Family Duals on Saturday going 3-1 on the day with wins over Centerville, Waukee and Eddyville-Blakesburg before falling to Atlantic. The Indians have three ranked wrestlers in their lineup in class 2A according to thepredicament.com with Jaxon Bussa No. 5 at 106lbs, Eric Kinkaid No. 4 at 138lbs and Cade Everson No. 6 at 182lbs. In this matchup last year it was the Indians that took a 51-30 win.
Bellevue enters with a 3-7 dual record. The Comets were last in dual action December 15th where they fell to Davenport Assumption and Midland but beat Dubuque Wahlert in a quadrangular. Mid-Prairie got the win over Bellevue at this event last season 48-30.
Northeast Goose Lake is 1-4 on the season. They were last on the mat in dual action December 12th when they dropped duals to Anamosa, Tipton and West Liberty in a quad. A year ago, the Golden Hawks rolled through the Rebels 60-9. This week, Mid-Prairie head coach Justin Garvey talked about the opponents tonight and what has him excited about the Hawks work over break. “The first thing I am most excited about is that our lineup is pretty well filled in now. We have some familiar faces back like Vinny Bowlin. I’m also excited by what they have picked up over break and added to their repertoire. On Thursday, we’ll see Northeast Goose Lake. We don’t know a lot about them. We see them twice a year, at this dual and at conference. They are far enough away our circles don’t overlap much. They have some holes in their lineup and their numbers are down. If we come out and take care of business, we should be alright in that one. Bellevue is kind of similar to us. They have some holes in their lineup, mixed in with some green wrestlers getting experience and some tough individuals. That’s one of those where it’s going to come down to individual matchups. We saw some of them head-to-head at the Central DeWitt tournament so there is some familiarity there. That’s a dual that I really want to get. I want our guys to perform well and get that ‘W’ for us but they are really going to have to perform. Camanche has a few holes in their lineup this year. Where they are strong though they have some studs. When those guys come up we are going to have to wrestle tough, stay in the match and fight the whole way through. At other points in the dual where the opportunity presents itself we have score bonus points against them.”
Action starts tonight at 5:30 and continues into the evening at Northeast Goose Lake High School.