Brothers, friends, rivals

FT. MADISON - Marcel and Dominic Lopez are best friends away from wrestling.

Put the two New London High School brothers on a wrestling mat and it's game on.

Set aside the friendship. Forget the fact they are brothers. Throw the records out the window. Then watch the fur fly.

Whatever one does, the other wants to do better.

When Marcel Lopez, a sophomore, went out and won the championship at 120 pounds at the Fort Madison Invitational on Saturday at the Hound Dome, Dominic felt compelled to do the same at 138 pounds, which the freshman did.

'That fueled me a lot,” said Dominic Lopez, who kept his unbeaten season intact with a hard-fought 2-0 win over Notre Dame-West Burlington/Danville's Grifen Molle in the final at 138. 'We're very competitive. He got one on me, so I have to get one on him.”

Marcel Lopez, the Class 1A state champion at 106 last season for the Tigers, had a pin and two major decisions on Saturday, including a 10-0 win over Owen Kruse of Fort Madison in the final.

'I just focused on getting to my offense and not letting anybody score. I was focused the whole time,” Marcel Lopez said. 'I have fun every time I go out there. I just let it fly.”

The rivalry between the two begets a valid question.

So just who wins the majority of the matches between the two training partners?

That depends on which one is asked.

'We push each other every day,” Dominic Lopez said. 'We just fight in the room. It's pretty even, but I win most of them. I've got a little size on him. Out of the practice room we, are best friends. But when we step into the wrestling room, we put all of that aside and get after it.”

'Definitely me,” Marcel Lopez said. 'It's pretty fun knowing I get to watch him wrestle in high school. It's a big step from middle school to high school. It's pretty cool watching him take it. He's my practice partner. We've been practice partners since way back.”

Together, the Lopez brothers helped New London to a fourth-place place finish in the two-day event. The Tigers piled up 381 points. Only Class 3A's Cedar Rapids Kennedy (first with 487 points), Dubuque Hempstead (second with 421 1/2 points) and host Fort Madison (third with 421 points) finished ahead of the Class 1A Tigers.

Fort Madison, despite missing two starters, nearly took second place and had three wrestlers in the finals.

'We were down a couple varsity guys. It would have been nice to have them. But the guys that wrestled did a good job,” Fort Madison coach Ryan Smith said. 'The effort was there. It's a tough tournament. It ran well. Going into break, we're pretty happy. We feel good about our effort, where we place and with how the whole tournament went.”

ND-WB/Danville finished eighth in the team standings with 284 points and crowned a champion in Blaine Frazier at 113. Frazier, the Class 2A state runner-up at 106 last year, rolled through his bracket Saturday with three pins.

Also for the New London Tigers, Josh Glendening was third at 126 pounds, Boden Pickle was 13th at 152, Gabe Carter was second at 160, Currey Jacobs was fourth at 170, Gavin Holmes was third at 182, Cameron Raines was second at 195, Jaxon Allen was second at 220, Owen Reed was fifth at 285 and Dylan Fisher was seventh at 285.

Burlington and Mediapolis each crowned a pair of champions.

Winning for the Grayhounds were senior Duncan Delzell at 132 and junior Tyler Hartman at 195. They helped the Grayhounds finish ninth with 276 points. Delzell beat Kael Scranton of Clear Creek-Amana, 8-2 in the final, but he left more points on the mat.

Hartman, by contrast, was much more pleased with his effort, which he capped with a 4-3 win over Cameron Raines of New London in the final.

Keegan Akers, after winning in the first tiebreaker in the semifinals, caught New London's Jaxon Allen and pinned him in 2:57 to take the championship at 220. Akers fought off his back, just inches from being pinned by Allen.

'We are 4-4 against each other. He was a tough competitor, but I was able to bring it out on top tonight,” Akers said. 'I knew it was going to be a tough match coming in. He's not really been a rival, but he's been one of my tougher competitors, even since last year. It's a huge confidence booster. I was expecting myself to come in and either of us to go undefeated and I came in and got first.”