Newton boys use six pins to defeat Southeast Warren in home quad

Kent Montgomery spent only 142 seconds on the mat during the Newton wrestling team’s home quadrangular on Tuesday. He won both of his contested matches by fall and is now 10-0 on the season.

But he ended his night disappointed because of the match he did not get.

Class 3A No. 9 Carlisle dominated the quadrangular with three fairly easy wins. But when it came time to send out a wrestler to face the Cardinals’ only ranked individual, the Wildcats decided against it.

“It went OK, but I was pretty disappointed the Carlisle kid didn’t wrestle,” Montgomery said. “It’s really frustrating. That’s a district match, and they kind of wimped out I guess.”

Carlisle’s Braxton Hummel had a solid night himself at 106. He was 2-0 with two pins but took a forfeit at 113 against Newton instead of facing Montgomery on the mat.

The Wildcats didn’t need those forfeit points either as they downed Newton 64-15 and went 8-2 in contested matches with six pins and two technical falls.

The Cardinals were 1-2 on the night as they opened with a 75-6 loss to Little Hawkeye Conference rival and 3A No. 16 Norwalk before defeating Southeast Warren/Melcher-Dallas 48-30.

“We learned a lot tonight. I learned a lot of what we need to address,” Newton head wrestling coach RJ Brown said. “We have some issues we have to address. That’s what’s nice about wrestling good teams.”

Brown was not particularly happy with the way his guys wrestled against Norwalk. Things improved some against Carlisle, but the Cardinals are still not where they want to be overall.

“I’m thankful we had this dual. We wrestled tough guys and learned what we need to get better at and learned some things they did to us that we can take and incorporate in the room,” Brown said. “We’ll be OK. It’s not even Christmas break so I’m not super worried yet.”

In the opening loss to Norwalk, Newton (3-3, 1-2 in the LHC) was 1-10 in contested matches and gave up the only three forfeits in the dual. Eight of the Warriors’ 10 wins came by pin, too.

Class 3A No. 4 Montgomery prevented Newton from getting shut out when he scored a win by pin in the first period at 106.

Newton was 8-3 in contested matches against Southeast Warren/Melcher-Dallas but had a 2-1 disadvantage in forfeits.

The dual started with Drew Bratland taking Newton’s lone forfeit at 175. Trevor Manka then followed with a 6-5 win at 190.

A string of five straight contested pins followed for Newton. Coleby Revell, who was making his season debut, started the run at 285 and then Montgomery, Kaiden Rogers (126), Zander Robson (132) and Sebastian Sorenson (138) all posted first-period falls.

Aiden Robson (8-4) won his match 13-6 at 144 and Lane Rozendaal won his match at 157 by fall at the end of the first period.

“Against Norwalk, we didn’t really do anything,” Brown said. “We didn’t wrestle hard, we didn’t fight and we weren’t aggressive like we normally are. It just wasn’t a good match.

“We did better against Southeast Warren, but we’re a better team than them so it’s hard to judge a lot from that one.”

The Cardinals are a bit short-handed at the moment. Abel Aldama (113) was out with an illness and Nick Milburn (215) and Jose Benitez (285) did not wrestle because of injuries.

Asher Rhoads is expected to be in the starting lineup at 165 when he makes his way back from an injury that has sidelined him for about a month.

Brown and his coaching staff did not shy away from putting out their guys against Carlisle’s highly-ranked wrestlers during Newton’s final dual of the night.

The Wildcats’ lineup features seven ranked grapplers, including top-ranked Jaxon Miller (165) and Asa Hemsted (190) and fourth-ranked Aiden Serrano (132), Ryan Rider (138) and Sevastian Soto (144).

The only one who did not have a match against Newton was Miller, who took a forfeit at 165.

The two contested wins produced by Newton against Carlisle came from Revell and Rozendaal, who is competing with a heavily-taped finger due to a early-season injury.

Revell won his match 5-1 at 285 and Rozendaal (4-1) scored a win by pin at 157.

“Carlisle has some dudes, but I think the guys who got wins wrestled well,” Brown said. “They found a way to fix some things. It’s still not where we want it to be though.”

Montgomery improved to 10-0 with four pins, three technical falls and two forfeits. Brown thought he looked like he should have looked based on the level of competition he faced.

And unfortunately, the best wrestler he could have faced on Tuesday was not given the chance to compete.

“My guess is it’s a long night with a quad and JV matches, they just probably knew (Montgomery) was going to beat them and they wanted to get out of here,” Brown said about the Montgomery forfeit at 106. “We can’t do anything about it.”

Montgomery highlighted Newton’s night with a 3-0 record. Both Revell and Rozendaal were 2-1.

Rozendaal’s lone loss was a 16-6 major decision defeat against 10th-ranked Dominic Tigner of Norwalk.

Revell’s only loss was by pin against second-ranked Kolton Borcherding-Johnson of Norwalk.

Brown said Tigner has an unusual style of wrestling that is not common in Iowa. He’s hard to prepare for but hopes seeing him on Tuesday will help Rozendaal’s chances if they meet again later this season.

“He’s hard to get a hold of and it’s even harder with a finger that’s taped up because of the injury,” Brown said. “A combination of that and (Tigner) being a good wrestler just made things difficult.”

Notes: Norwalk’s lineup features four ranked wrestlers. … Montgomery is happy with how he’s wrestling so far but also knows what still needs work. “I was not that good in neutral last year but have been so much better so far this year,” Montgomery said. “I need to get quicker feet. My feet are bricks out there, but it’s getting better. Not having great competition like tonight just means I have to work a lot harder in practice.”