It’s a busy opening week for the Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk wrestling team. After starting the season Tuesday with a non-conference quadrangular against Eddyville-Blakesburg, English Valleys and Wapello, the Hawks are back in the friendly confines of Tim Grady Gymnasium in Wellman tonight to start the River Valley Conference season, hosting a quad with West Branch, Tipton and Southeast Iowa Superconference foe New London.
Mid-Prairie dropped two of three duals on their home mat Tuesday night, falling to the Indians and Rockets by 51-27 and 60-30 scores before rebounding to beat the Bears 66-18. Mid-Prairie’s night was highlighted by two wins each in contested matches for Manny Watts at 160lbs and Cael Garvey at 220lbs. Mose Yoder, Landry Gingerich, Andrew Kaufman, Kaden Meader and Terry Bordenave all recorded one contested victory. Mid-Prairie enters the dual with a pair of ranked wrestlers in 2A with Garvey at No. 1 at 195lbs and Gannon Callahan No. 11 at 285lbs according to IAwrestle.com.
West Branch comes into the night with a 1-0 record on the young season after beating Van Buren 42-29 in a dual Tuesday. The Bears were 6-5 a season ago. They have no ranked wrestlers in their lineup but return Lincoln Edwards at 106lbs, Auron Marsh at 138lbs, Cole Bailey and Jaxson Kaalberg at 152lbs, and Logan Wright at 220lbs who all finished above .500 a season ago. Mid-Prairie beat the Bears last season 54-24 in their only meeting.
This is the season opener for the Tipton Tigers. They finished with a 9-19 dual record a season ago. The Tigers have no ranked wrestlers in their lineup but return Michael Puffer at 106lbs, Tristin Sorgenfrey at 120lbs, Kaleb Nerem at 152lbs,and Skylar Schmidt at 170lbs who all finished above .500 last season with Sorgenfrey and Nerem both qualifying for districts last year. Head to head, the Hawks got the win over Tipton 43-42 on criteria a season ago.
New London is 0-3 on the season after opening with losses to No. 3 in 1A Lisbon, West Liberty and North Mahaska in duals Tuesday. The Tigers are ranked No. 7 in class 1A in the preseason poll from IAwrestle.com. The Tigers have four ranked wrestlers in their lineup with Marcel Lopez No. 1 at 126lbs, Dominic Lopez No. 4 at 152lbs, Josh Glendening No. 8 at 170lbs and Boden Pickle No. 12 at 182lbs with both Lopez brothers, Glendening and Pickle all advancing to state a season ago. New London beat the Hawks at this event last year 47-36. This week, Mid-Prairie head coach Justin Garvey talked about his team’s opening night and how he wants his team to grow Thursday. “We have the luxury of a full lineup this year, we can cover all of the weight classes. Against English Valleys, we got guys in some good matchups for us, we got some wins and good experience. Overall on the night, I thought our young guys were a little hesitant. We were waiting to see what the opponent was going to do, and in wrestling it’s not great to be back on your heels, so our message after the meet was that we need to be the ones that are aggressive dictating the match and the tempo. The young guys just need a little more experience. Manny Watts really came through for us with a pair of wins. He gutted out a 6-5 decision win and got a pin. He is a first year Mid-Prairie student and I know the coach of his previous program, I talked to him after the meet and he said those were the first two wins of his career. Cael Garvey also went 2-0 at 220lbs. He got out on the mat, knocked off the rust and did his thing.”
Action begins at 5:30 and continues into the evening at Mid-Prairie High School in Wellman.