Beam, Carter second, Rams 8th at state wrestling meet

DES MOINES - For the first time in over 15 years, the Glenwood wrestling team had two grapplers reach the finals at the Iowa State Wrestling meet concluding Saturday night at the Wells Fargo Arena.

The Rams’ Matthew Beem and C.J. Carter swept through their respective 126 and 195 pound brackets to wrestle for state championships. Beem (24-4) scored the first two points on a takedown of Benton Community’s Jaiden Moore (41-0). But Moore rallied for a 5-4 decision.

Carter (51-3) faced a tall challenge in his finals match against West Delaware’s Wyatt Voelker (44-0), the No. 1 ranked 195-pounder in the state who is also ranked No. 9 nationally. Voelker repelled nearly every Carter attack in a 19-7 major decision victory.

While both matches didn’t go the duo’s way, Glenwood head coach Tucker Weber said the Rams had a great weekend.

“It’s kind of disappointing to go 0-2 in the finals but I’m proud of the kids and how they wrestled all year,” Weber said. “To come home with two second place finishes and a fifth place finish I’m pretty proud. And to finish in the top 10 as a team with three guys, that’s pretty impressive.”

Vinny Mayberry placed fifth in his 113-pound bracket to give the Rams their third medal winner at state. Mayberry scored an 11-3 major decision win over Creston’s Cole Schmauss (36-7) in the fifth place match.

Burlington Notre Dame edged Osage 109 to 108.5 for the Class 2A team championship. The Rams finished eighth with 55 points, seven points better than Hawkeye 10 Conference champion Atlantic.

Weber wasn’t at all surprised Beem made the finals, even if some in Des Moines might have been. The sophomore missed half the season recovering from off-season elbow surgery and while he entered state ranked No. 5 in his weight, he’d wrestled just 24 varsity matches entering state.

“He wrestled really well and he’s got that in him,” Weber said. “He was out half a season but he’s got that potential and he’s got really good stuff and he showed it this weekend.”

Against the top ranked Moore in the finals, Beem showed he deserved to be in the finals.

“I always preach if you go hard for five or six straight minutes I’m going to be proud of you whether it’s a win or a loss,” Weber said. “I truly believe that he fought for six minutes so that’s kind of what I told him. It sucks but the good thing is he has two more years to climb that podium. You know, it’s tough in the time but yeah those are ones you like to get.”

In the 195-pound finals, Voelker, who will wrestle collegiately at Northern Iowa, seemed prepared for every Carter attack and was able to turn the Ram junior’s natural aggressiveness against him in the major decision.

“I’m proud of him,” Weber said of Carter. “There’s not many kids he doesn’t tech fall or pin and CJ got him a little flustered and the kid didn’t open up as much as he probably wanted to but we knew it was going to be a dog fight. We were hoping to try to keep it close, a little bit closer than that. We were planning on winning obviously but against a kid like that you’ve got to tip your hat to him for how much work he’s put into it.”

All season Weber has talked about how Carter took huge step technically this year. It showed at state, he said.

“I just kind of told him after the match, that’s the difference between a kid that wrestles on the off season all year round and a kid that wrestles three to four months out of the year,” he said. “Hopefully he gets a little edge this year in the off season and sees his potential because he’s got a future in football and wrestling. It’s just going to be up to him what he wants to play in college.”

Carter’s 51 wins are the second most in a season, behind only 2016 State Champion Matt Malcom’s 52 wins.

The Rams couldn’t have opened their 2022 state tournament any better, going 3-0 with three falls in the first round.

“We were planning on three wins,” said Glenwood coach Tucker Weber. “We didn’t know they’d all come by fall. That’s an added bonus. They all looked good. Vinny and C.J. pinned their guys in the first period and Matt was in the second period.”

Carter needed just 1:18 to pin his first round opponent, Brenden Casey of Atlantic.

With all three of Glenwood’s qualifiers making their second trip to Des Moines, there were no first time jitters or nerves with these three, Weber said. All three were aggressive and all three wrestled their matches.

“That’s their style,” Weber said of the trio’s aggressive attack. “They’ve all been here before. That helps. Some kids get to the state tournament the first time and kind of get nervous. These three have all been here so that helps them.”

And all three have likely not made their last trip to Des Moines. Beem and Mayberry are both sophomores and Carter is a junior.