Going out on Top


Matt Malcom holds the Lopers’ team championship trophy.

Matt Malcom could have called it a career after last season.

The University of Nebraska-Kearney senior who’d, just wrapped up his fourth All-American season placing fifth at the Division II National Wrestling Championships – he also won a 157-pound national title in 2019 – he’d accomplished almost every goal he set after transferring to the school from the University of Iowa.

Except a team national championship.

On Saturday, Malcom, who along with a handful of teammates that took advantage of an extra-year of eligibility due to COVID-19, changed all that.

Malcom won his second individual title, this time at 165-pounds, and the Lopers dominated the field with eight total all-Americans to win the school’s fourth national title Saturday in St. Louis. Their 127 team points are the most for a national championship winning team in over a decade. The University Central Oklahoma was a distant second with 86 points.

Malcom, a 2016 Glenwood graduate, was the Lopers’ lone individual champion but three other “super seniors” placed in the top three at nationals.

“I don’t think very many of us would have come back if we weren’t planning to win a team national title together,” Malcom said from the team bus on the way home from St. Louis Sunday. “I think we knew it would take every one of us to do it rather than just one or two of us.”

The top-seeded 165-pounder pounder, Malcom edged No. 2 seed and previously unbeaten Shane Gantz of Wisconsin-Parkside 1-0 in the final. Malcom fought off every shot attempt from the defensive-minded Gantz, who he had wrestled twice before in the previous two seasons.

“We always wrestled close matches, 3-2, 5-3 something like that,” Malcom said. “I knew it would be a tough match. He wrestles a lot of close matches and you’re never able to score a lot on him. I knew it was going to be a tough seven minutes.”

His escape to start the second period was the lone point scored. Gantz went neutral to start the third.

“He’s really strong and very solid, very technically sound,” Malcom said. “He doesn’t do a whole lot but he also doesn’t allow a lot of action to score on him.”
Malcom has a hard time comparing his 2022 individual championship to the one he won in 2019. It’s been so long he, said. But winning this time as part of a team national championship makes this one pretty special.

“Having the team title wrapped up with it is a good feeling,” he said. “I think I had a real breath of relief afterwards as this kind of starts the next chapter of my life. Winning the first one there was still work to be done.”
Walking off that mat for the final time at the Chaifetz Arena was bittersweet for the 24-year-old who left Iowa back in 2017 with no plan to continue wrestling until UNK called. Returning to school and the sport he loves is a decision he’s not once regretted.

“I was able to make a lot better life for myself and set myself up for a lot of success in life off the mat,” he said. “I don’t think I’d be wear I’m at in my life without going to Nebraska-Kearney.”
Which isn’t to say he ever imagined the career he wound have.

“I did not envision this in the beginning,” he said. “I was concerned with just being able to wrestle. Things fell into place after that.”

Malcom, capped off his Loper career with a career record of 125-25 and as the school’s first five-time All-American. This year he went 30-2 overall and was undefeated against Division II competition. He won a state title for Glenwood in 2016 and is believed to be the first former Ram to win a national title.

A physical education major who graduated in December, Malcom will begin that next chapter in the fall. He has been hired as a teacher and head wrestling coach at Bellevue East High School.

He already has plans to schedule a dual against his alma mater.

“I’ve always wanted to coach,” he said. “I didn’t know exactly what level or how or where, but after my sophomore year I went into education and high school coaching seemed like a natural fit.”

The Opinion-Tribune

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