The state high school wrestling tournament opened this afternoon with the first round in class 2A. Creston/Orient-Macksburg is the favorite to win the team title and Andrew Long got the Panthers off to a quick start by pinning Sigourney-Keota’s Matt Seeley at 112 pounds. Long is searching for his second straight individual title.
Long says it would be nice to win not only an individual state title and a team state title, and a dual meet state title. Long says if everyone wrestles well, there’s no doubt they’ll take home the gold.
Long started quickly and immediately took Seeley to the mat at the start of the match. Long says there’s always nerves, but the more you wrestle the more immune you get to the nerves and can control them a lot easier.
The first match to finish was Clear Lake’s Joe Colon. The sophomore 103 pounder improved to 31-0 with a first period pin of Josh Frush of Union LaPorte City. Conlon says he got underneath and then stepped back and got him. Conlon says it’s good to get the first win.
At 125 pounds J.J. Krutsinger from Waterloo Columbus opened his bid for a second straight title with a 16-2 win over Adam Parker from Aurelia-Galva-Holstein but he was not happy with his performance. He says he got turned and didn’t want to get turned, but he says hopefully he can try harder and have a better performance in the next round.
Krutsinger was upset he gave up two back points to Parker, saying he stood up and didn’t clear his arms right and that’s what happens when you make a mistake at state, you get points scored on you.