Tucker Wheeler advances to state, PCM wrestling finishes second at district tourney

HUXLEY — The top two finishers in each weight class in each district advance to the state wrestling tournament in Class 2A.

Unfortunately for the Mustangs, they were good enough to place second as a team but seven third-place finishers left the PCM wrestling team with a bittersweet feeling.

Freshman Tucker Wheeler was good enough to advance to state, and he led the Mustangs to a runner-up finish in the eight-team field at the district tournament on Saturday.

But PCM lost three wrestle-back matches and had 10 wrestlers finish either third or fourth.

Host Ballard won the district team title with 192 points. PCM had 153 points in second and Albia (145), Knoxville (136.5) and West Marshall (133) were close behind in third, fourth and fifth, respectively, at Ballard High School.

The rest of the field included Grinnell (101), Perry (55) and Nevada (25).

Wheeler (40-12) won his 40th match of the season when he finished 2-1 for the day with two pins. He ended up second at 138 pounds after losing 7-5 to 2A No. 4 Luke Spaur of Knoxville.

It was Wheeler’s third loss to Spaur this season. He lost 3-1, 6-4 and 7-5.

Kaliber Fry (106), Zach Richards (120), Remington Fry (132), William Vanderpool (160), Wyatt Wheeler (170), Nate Richards (195) and Kaden Clark (285) all finished third in their weight classes.

Zach Richards, Remington Fry and Nate Richards each lost wrestle-back matches.

Zach Richards (30-15) was 3-2 for the day with three pins. One of his losses came against No. 9 Shane Hanford of West Marshall.

Remington Fry (34-14) finished 1-2 for the day with one pin. Nate Richards (31-17) ended up 3-2 with three pins.

Vanderpool, Wyatt Wheeler and Clark all finished 3-1 at their weights. Clark (35-15) won three times by first-period pin, Wyatt Wheeler (18-14) also registered three pins and Vanderpool (23-19) had two pins.

Clark’s lone loss came against No. 1 Paul Ballard of Albia. Ballard is now 46-1 this season after falling 3-1 in SV-1 in the finals to No. 7 Gene Blalock of Grinnell.

There were two ranked wrestlers at 106, 170 and 285.

The final third-place finisher was Kaliber Fry (27-16) at 106. He was 2-1 with two pins and his lone loss was a 2-0 decision.

Hewitt Brinegar (145), Jeffrey McDanel (152) and Donovan Nickelson (182) all finished fourth.

Brinegar (34-19) and McDanel (23-19) both finished 2-2 with one pin. Both of Brinegar’s losses were by decision. McDanel lost once by decision. Nickelson (23-10) was 1-2 with one pin.

Harrison Brinegar was 1-2 at 126 and Charlie Sitzmann (113) and Joel Greiner (220) both were 0-2 at their weights. Greiner’s day ended with an injury.

Tucker Wheeler begins his 2A 138-pound tournament run as the 14th seed. He faces 19th-seeded Aiden Hippen (33-11) of Clear Lake in his opening match.

The winner meets third-ranked and third-seeded Tate O’Shea (22-1) of Keokuk in the next round.

The 2A portion of the Iowa High School State Wrestling Championships begins at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.