WINTERSET, Iowa — A quintet of Hawks will compete Saturday in a district tournament after the Woodward-Granger wrestlers hit the mats at the Class 2A Sectional 2 event over the weekend.
Winterset won the team title with 246 points, with North Polk second at 198 and ADM third at 176. W-G scored 173 points to finish fourth, with Perry fifth at 152 while Saydel completed the field with 56 points.
Alex Saxton (35-8 at 106 pounds) and Alex Evans (30-11 at 220) both won sectional titles to advance, with James Dorrian (25-20 at 126), Peyton Nixon (12-6 at 132) and Dustin Harney (25-6 at 160) all three advancing after finishing as the runner-up in their weight class.
All will compete at Ballard Saturday, with the winner and runner-up both moving to the state tourney after facing qualifiers from among Ballard, Gilbert, Nevada, Roland-Story, Southeast Valley and Humboldt, who hosted the Sectional 1 meet.
Saxton won with a pin of Perry’s Mercedes Ponce (3-10) in 1 minute, 32 seconds and a 3-2 decision over North Polk’s Dillon Freeman (19-7) while Evans stopped Perry’s Kevin Colin (17-10), 11-5, and then outscored North Polk’s Reece Wrage (25-6), 9-3, for first place.
Harney defeated Benjamin Bryant (17-8, NP) 7-2 before dropping a 5-2 decision, advancing after a loss when Bryant won his consolation match, giving the Hawk senior a victory on “prior” as he had already defeated Bryant.
The same scenario played out for Nixon, who won by pin in 1:31 over Saydel’s Adrian Vega-Munoz (3-21). Nixon beat Winterset’s Zeke Hoven (15-8) with a 6-5 decision then survived a loss in the finals to advance with a prior.
Dorrian was a 13-3 major decision victor over Evan Kelsick of North Polk (9-2), lost in the finals, and also moved on with a prior.
Brayden Simons (25-17) was 2-2 in placing third at 152 pounds, with Kolby Fogarty (28-14) third at 170 after a 1-2 mark. Simons won, 14-10, and by pin in 5:29, with Fogarty’s victory a pin in 27 ticks.
Abraham Bell (6-15) was 1-2 with a pin in placing fourth at 113, with Holden Heard fourth at 120 with a 1-2 mark that also featured a pin.
Tjaden Smeltzer (17-23) was 0-1 and fifth at 138 and Oliver Potter (16-19) 0-2 and sixth at 145.
Also in action for W-G was Jackson Potter (16-14), who finished third at 182 with a 1-2 effort while Dylan Major (5-7) was 0-1 and fifth at heavyweight.
The Hawks did not have an entrant at 195 pounds.
