Rams crown three at Hawk-10 meet

    CRESTON - The Glenwood wrestling team followed up its clinching of the Hawkeye 10 Conference regular season-title and a perfect dual season with a  second place showing at the conference tournament on Saturday in Creston.

    Glenwood had seven wrestlers reach the finals with three earning championships to rack up 223 team points. The host Panthers won the conference crown with 242.5 points. The title is Creston’s second straight.
    “It was a tough tournament and the boys came out and wrestled really well,” said Glenwood coach Brad Asche. “The only thing we couldn’t control was how well Creston wrestled. They ended up scoring a few more points than us but overall, we wrestled really tough.”
    Chase Evans (106 pounds), Cole Peckham (113), Sam Jameson (126), Seth Warren (132), Jesse Bendt (138), Josh Clark (152) and Alex Killpack (285) all made the finals in their weight classes for Glenwood.

    Jameson went unscathed through the first three rounds after a bye and a pair of falls over Shenandoah’s Jake Johnson and Clarinda’s Cole Race en route to the finals. In the championship match Jameson dominated from the opening and cruised to a 15-9 decision over Class 1A, No. 3 ranked Jared Eischeid. The title was Jameson’s second after winning as a freshman.
    “Sam is on a hot streak right now,” Asche said. “Hopefully, Sam can carry that into to the post-season. He handled Eischeid and really wrestled well.”
    Killpack and Clark hadsimilarly easy roads to the finals. Both recorded falls in their first two matches.
    Asche told Clark before the day started if he wrestled smart, he could win his bracket. Clark didn’t disappoint, recording two pins and battling Creston’s Jesse Rathe in a grueling match Clark came out on top, 8-6.
    “He’s had a few instances where he’s had tough matches in January and he wasn’t wrestling smart. But he wrestled smart on Saturday and came out a winner,” Asche said.
    Killpack avenged a Jan. 10 loss to Council Bluffs Lewis Central’s Zach Renshaw in the heavyweight final, getting  a pin at the 5:30 mark.
    “This was a pretty good vengeance for him. He beat a kid who’s beaten him twice and he finally gets that top medal after finishing out of the medals last year,” Asche said.
    Evans, Peckham and Warren all lost close decisions in the finals while Bendt suffered a fall at the hands of Creston’s three-time state champion and University of Iowa recruit Jake Marlin.
    In all, 13 Glenwood wrestlers medaled at the conference meet.
    “Every kids scored points for us. This was a pretty good tournament for us,” Asche said.
    The Rams are next in action at the Class 3A regional duals on Feb. 6. Glenwood, seeded No. 14 will travel top No. 1 seeded Southeast Polk. Both teams are undefeated in duals this season.
Glenwood coach Brad Asche said he wasn’t surprised with the pairing but that doesn’t mean he was happy with it.
    “There’s nothing we can do about it,” said the coach. “It’s a geographic thing. There’s only eight 3A teams in western Iowa and its hard to promote how good wrestling is here when there’s 56 3A teams in central in and eastern Iowa. It’s tough to swallow because we have two unblemished teams going against each other and that means one of us is not qualifying for state duals. That’s hard for me to swallow but we’re going to go out and wrestle hard. These guys don’t like losing.”

Rams wrap up perfect dual season
The Glenwood wrestling team wrapped up a perfect Hawkeye 10 Conference season on Thursday with a 56-18 win over Harlan.
The conference title is the Rams’ first since 2005.
The Rams jumped on the Cyclones early, getting falls in their first four matches to roll out to a 24-0 lead.
“The atmosphere was unbelievable,” Asche said of the near capacity crowd on hand for the Rams’ conference clinching dual win. “I really have to thank the fans for coming out. That was a big advantage for our wrestling team. We came out and wrestled out tails off and got everybody into it.”
Brogan Weddum (145 pounds), Andrew Tilley (152), Josh Clark (160), Jordan Krewson (170), Chase Evans (106), Sam Jameson (126), Seth Warren (132) and Jesse Bendt (138) all earned falls in the win and Cole Peckham (113) recorded a technical fall in his victory.
Harlan had entered the dual with just one dual loss this season. Asche said his team was confident and on top of their game from the get go.
“They lost to Creston and the guys knew that. These seniors, when you ask them their favorite memory of this year they’ll tell you it’s beating Creston this year. They know Creston beat these (Harlan) guys. I don’t think any of our kids were worried,” Asche said. “I get worried as a coach because I can’t control how all 14 kids wrestle so you have to hope they all wrestle their best every time and they did that. That was a good team we beat pretty handily.”

Glenwood 56,
Harlan 18
145: Brogan Weddum, G, won by fall over Kyle Travis, H, 0:32 152: Andrew Tilley, G, won by fall over Jacob Koke, H, 1:46. 160: Josh Clark, G, won by fall over Austin Foss, H, 0:34. 170: Jordan Krewson, G, won by fall over Adam Zaccone, H, 2:44. 182: Dallon Bendorf, H, won by decision over Hunter Hoffmann, G, 3-0. 195: Cale Stork, H, pinned Logan Ruth, G, 5:18. 220: Tyler Johannsen, H, won by fall over Drayton Slaughter, G, 5:31. 285: Alex Killpack, G, won by decision over Jordan Siebert, H, 5-0. 106: Chase Evans, G, won by fall over Wil Beach, H, 5:20. 113: Cole Peckham, G, won by technical fall over Chris Hopkins, H, 22-7. 120: Broghan Kelly, H, won by decision over Matt Malcom, G, 7-0. 126: Sam Jameson, G, won by fall over Levi Preston, H, 1:17. 132: Seth Warren, G, won by fall over Jacob Priester, H, 1:10. 138: Jesse Bendt, G, won by fall over Christian Soll, H, 0:44.