The Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk boys wrestling team starts the River Valley Conference schedule tonight with a trip to Dyersville-Beckman for a quad against Tipton, West Branch and the home Blazers. The Golden Hawks are 2-1 on the season after opening the year at the Washington County Duals Tuesday, beating WACO and Highland in duals but falling to the home Demons. Unbeaten Hawks Tuesday included Peyton Fox with three pins, Max Kipp with two falls, and Burke Berry with a pin. Golden Hawks with 2-1 records included Blake Malichky with a fall and a 14-9 decision, Max Howe with a pin, Mason Howe with two falls, Josh Turner with a pin, and Tommy Miller with two falls. At this event a year ago in West Branch, Mid-Prairie went 1-2 with losses to Tipton and the Bears, 57-24 and 63-12 and a 48-24 victory over Beckman. Golden Hawk head coach Duncan McCain joined the KCII PM Sports Page this week to talk about his takeaways from opening night.
McCain said, “Peyton (Fox) wrestled lights out. He was very good technically on his feet, getting to his shots and looking to put guys away. Max Kipp put guys away and helped out team points, and Burke (Berry), I think it was a seven second pin. We have a few things we need to work on, some small technical things. Tuesday, we saw that our team is good at looking for bonus points. We had a lot of guys that were able to get big pins and elevate our team to wins. They were a lot of fun to watch!”
Tipton was 14-12 in duals last year, finishing sixth as a team at the RVC Championships. Leading returner is River Valley runner-up Jayson Johnson at 120 following a 31-7 junior season. Twenty match winners back for the Tigers include Keaton Schultz at 106, Gavin Sorgenfrey at 126, Gavin Roth at 132, and Kael Chapman at 150.
West Branch was 13-1 in duals last season and finished third at the RVC Championship meet with one champ and five runners-up. Four of the five second place finishers are back including Ethan Humphrey at 106, Logan Christoffel at 132, Cooper Gates at 165 and Tate Frantz at 190, combining on 150 victories a season ago.
Beckman was 1-22 in duals last year, finishing 13th at the River Valley meet, led by third place finisher at 138 and returner Preston Hunter and his team best 29 wins. The full roster returns for the Blazers including 27 match winner Cody Hageman at 175 and 23 time winner Shawn Brunsman at 150. Action starts tonight at 5:30p.m.