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2 grapplers earn 3rd at district tourney
by Gregory R. Norfleet · Sports · February 15, 2018
West Branch’s two district wrestlers both finished with third place Saturday, just missing a chance to wrestle at the state tournament.
Junior 106-pounder Tyler Siemen ended the year with a 24-20 record and senior heavyweight Jacob Barnhart ended with a 20-18 record as the Bears’ season closed at Wilton.
Head Coach Cody Krumweide said he was pleased with how the two remaining wrestlers fared at the Iowa High School Athletic Assoc.’s District 8 tournament.
In a sign of how close the 106-pound wrestlers matched up in ability, only one of the five matches ended in a pin, and the rest were separated by no more than five points.
Siemen lost to Wilton’s Kael Brisker by just three points in an 11-8 decision, then beat Lone Tree’s Bryce Thompson 5-2 to take third place.
Brisker, who placed first in sectionals, earned the first takedown against Siemen, but the West Branch junior escaped and earned a takedown to take a 3-2 lead at the end of the first period. Siemen escaped again to open the second, but Brisker reclaimed the point race with two takedowns to another Siemen escape. Going into the third, Siemen trailed by a point, 6-5. Brisker earned two takedowns while Siemen managed an escape, then a reversal, closing the gap to two points. Brisker managed another escape to take the final 11-8 win.
“He wrestled decently today,” the coach said of Siemen. “Obviously, we’d like that match against Wilton back. That was the deciding match for us, essentially.”
Barnhart earned one key victory Saturday by defeating North Cedar’s Chase Gallagher (29-15), who beat his West Branch opponent throughout the season. Barnhart closed the gap with Gallagher each time they met, and finally found a way to beat him when it most mattered.
The two went scoreless in the first period though both nearly took each other down. Opening the second period, Barnhart opted for the down position, escaped, took Gallagher down and pinned him at the 3:16 mark.
“I got pretty excited during that one,” Krumweide said. “That was pretty good. Jacob’s wanted to beat him all year and we’ve had the kid right where we needed him in two matches already but we just couldn’t finish. This is the match we finally finished. We broke the kid. We had the kid folding on the mat there. He did not want to be there and we did and we capitalized.”
Barnhart then faced Louisa Muscatine’s Gabe Hayes (16-16), starting with a takedown. Hayes managed a reversal and nearly pinned Barnhart before the two inched out of bounds. Barnhart earned a reversal and trailed by a point going into the second period.
Hayes deferred and Barnhart chose bottom, but then in his attempt to escape, the two became tangled up and fell awkwardly to the mat. In the scramble, Hayes somehow got his legs around Barnhart’s while Barnhart fell to his back. Hayes twisted his body, turning Barnhart’s legs upward and push his shoulders to the mat for the pin.
Krumweide called Hayes “a unique heavyweight.”
“He was a kid who liked to do switches and some leg rolls, which caught Barney a little off-guard,” the coach said, saying that most of the time a wrestlers needs to stay low. “But in some of those situations you have to stay high.”
The awkward fall and scramble even confused the coach, but the outcome was clear.
“It was so close,” he said. “We were super proud of (Barnhart). It’s a brave thing to go out for a sport your senior year and have the success he did. He was open to everything we tried to have him do this year. It was a building process throughout the year, and we were really hoping he could finish strong here (with a trip to state).”
The heavyweight bracket included No. 8 Cody Crawford of WACO, Barnhart’s first opponent, and Krumweide said he would not be surprised to see Hayes make the Top Four his senior year.
“We finally beat Gallagher, so that was redemption,” the coach said.
He said Siemen’s development this year makes him more of a weapon next season.
“The good news is that he’s right up there with those guys who are making it to state, which is good for next year,” the coach said. “We’ve got to put a little edge on ourself. Sometimes we’re just a little too nice, a little too passive. And one thing we’re really going to work on this off-season is being a little meaner, rougher with our hands, forcing our moves on a guy. … He gets another year to come back and build on things and hopefully make it to state.”
Krumweide finished his first year as the team’s head coach and said he saw “a lot of improvement” in all of the wrestlers.
“The biggest thing that killed us was numbers,” he said, noting that the team started with 12 and ended with eight wrestlers. “I need more guys out. I’ve been trying to talk to kids all year, telling them that wrestling has the most correlation with football. You talk to some of the best football players out there that wrestled, they will say that wrestling made them a better football player. I need some kids to realize that and to come out and actually do this. It works very well. I try preach to the kids that it’s all about staying low and being mobile, which is what football is, too.”
More wrestlers means more chances in practice to face grapplers with different styles, Krumweide said.
“It’s a more competitive atmosphere when it’s not just a few buys really separated by weight,” the coach said. “The guys had to wrestle with guys who weren’t close to their weight class -- they were either way too light or way to heavy. But that’s the ails of a small school.”
Team scores: 1. Lisbon 150.5; 2. Wilton 92.0; 3. Wapello 53.0; 4. New London 48.0; 5. Louisa-Muscatine 46.0; 6. Mediapolis 38.0; 7. Regina 36.0; 8. Belle Plaine 25.0; 9. Highland 22.0; 10. (tie) Lone Tree 20.0, 10 Waco 20.0; 12. West Branch 18.0; 13. Van Buren Community 10.0; 14. Cardinal 8.0; 15. (tie) Durant 0.0, North Cedar 0.0
Individual results
106: Semifinals - Kael Brisker (Wilton) over Tyler Siemen (West Branch) (Dec 11-8); 2nd Place Match - Kael Brisker (Wilton) over Tyler Siemen (West Branch) (RULE); 3rd Place Match - Tyler Siemen (West Branch) over Bryce Thompson (Lone Tree) (Dec 5-2)
285: Semifinals - No. 8 Cody Crawford (Waco) over Jacob Barnhart (West Branch) (Fall 1:32); 2nd Place Match - Gabe Hayes (Louisa-Muscatine) over Jacob Barnhart (West Branch) (Fall 2:38); 3rd Place Match - Jacob Barnhart (West Branch) over Chase Gallagher (North Cedar) (Fall 3:16)
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