Wheeler, Clark lead PCM wrestlers to second at home tournament

MONROE — Tucker Wheeler got some redemption, Kaden Clark won all three matches by pin and the PCM wrestling team used two championships and one runner-up finish to place second at its home tournament on Saturday.

The Mustangs rallied with a strong final round to edge the Indianola junior varsity by a single point at the Mustang Invitational.

“It was good to have a couple champions in there,” PCM head wrestling coach Rusty Vos said. “There are always going to be matches we wish we could have back, and that was the case today. I think we started wrestling well about halfway through the day.

“We had a really good consolation round to allow us to win some medals and score some points.”

Wheeler and Clark both won individual titles, Kaliber Fry fell to a ranked wrestler in his finals match, Sawyer Bouwkamp earned a place in the third-place match and five PCM grapplers competed in the fifth-place match as PCM scored 158 points in second.

The Southeast Polk JV used its 22 wrestlers to win the tournament. The Rams scored 246.5 points at the top of the standings.

The Mustangs (158) edged the Indianola JV (157) for second and the rest of the top five featured Pleasantville (146) and Iowa Falls-Alden (144.5).

The remaining top 10 in the 13-team field included South Tama County (144), Des Moines East (141.5), Panorama (117.5), Central Decatur (116) and Chariton (96).

Class 2A No. 7 Wheeler (30-4) was 4-0 for the day at 157 pounds. He won his first three matches by technical fall and then handed 1A No. 5 Zane Mullenix of Pleasantville his first loss of the season in the finals.

Mullenix (24-1) downed Wheeler in a match earlier this season, but the Mustang junior controlled the rematch from the opening whistle and won 7-2. He had a takedown taken away late in the first period but led 4-1 after two and added another takedown in the third.

“I didn’t have a great match the last time we wrestled,” Wheeler said. “So I was focused this time on wrestling hard, doing my moves, controlling the match and not letting it get into my head that I lost.

“For him, I’m sure it’s a big loss. For me, it’s a big win but mainly because I wrestled the best I could, and I know I got better today.”

Class 2A No. 4 Clark (29-2) was not the No. 1 seed for the tournament. That was a surprise to Clark, but it also made him wrestle better.

He was 3-0 for the day with three pins. His first two matches did not get out of the first period and he pinned Panorama’s Joel Cooper (16-7) in the second period to win the 285-pound title. Clark scored two takedowns before securing the pin.

Cooper was the No. 1 seed because he was a state qualifier last season.

“It’s just another obstacle in the way of my ultimate goal,” Clark said. “It was a quality win for me though. It’s motivating for me to know that I can beat someone who has qualified for state. It feels good to know that I’m on the right track. I still need to get better in that room though.

“This is an ‘easy’ tournament compared to some of those other ones we’ve been in. It feels good to win in front of my home crowd though.”

The other finalist was Fry, who was 2-1 with two technical falls at 120. Fry (26-7) is ranked No. 12 at 126, but he lost 10-2 to 1A No. 8 Tommy Booth (24-0) of Pleasantville in the 120 final.

Bouwkamp was fourth at 165, while Bentlee Sloan, Zach Richards, Harrison Brinegar and Finn Wilson all placed fifth at their respective weights. Kaiden Valcore took sixth at 215.

Bouwkamp (13-9) was 3-2 with two pins at 165, Sloan (16-11) finished 4-2 with three technical falls and one pin at 132 and Richards, Brinegar and Wilson all were 3-2 with two pins at 138, 150 and 175, respectively.

Richards (16-8) was coming off a win over a state-ranked wrestler on Thursday. One of his two losses on Saturday came against eventual champion and 1A No. 12 Blake Rowson (23-2) of Pleasantville.

“He wrestled well early. That win over (2A No. 10) Kinnick Geers (of West Marshall) on Thursday was a great win, too,” Vos said. “He got down to 138 for the first time today. He looks pretty good and will just keep getting better.”

Valcore finished his day 3-3 with two pins at 215. The Mustangs entered 13 wrestlers in the tournament and the other four — Charlie Sitzmann (126), Gus Nolin (165), Abdulvahid Mamasaliev (190) and Hayden Shannon (285) — all went 0-2.

The biggest challenge for the Mustangs over the holiday break was getting back into shape after taking a required five days off from practice.

“You always have to get back into shape over the break because you lose a few days of practice,” Vos said. “We have to take five full days off so that puts us behind a bit. We have to wrestle hard right away and not worry about the technical stuff. We have to get the cardio and conditioning back as quickly as possible.”

Wheeler’s win over Mullenix could have been much worse as he couldn’t quite finish a few of his shots throughout the match. Vos was happy with how much Wheeler attacked on his feet though.

“I want to finish my shots a little quicker,” Wheeler said. “I got in a lot of shots that I didn’t finish today. I should have scored more points than I did. There was one takedown near the edge of the mat that was close.”

Vos said Clark got a confidence-boosting win in the finals, but was caught out of position a few times during the match.

“He has to make sure to stay in position,” Vos said. “He got tossed on the edge of the mat there once. That was close, and you can’t do that when it gets to crunch time.

“He told us it was good that he took a few lumps at the Osage tournament. He got knocked down some but was able to reset and can hopefully finish the season strong. He’s been working hard in the room and is getting there.”