Highland is SEISC champion

RIVERSIDE - Something happened Saturday for the Highland High School wrestling team that hadn't happened since 1985. The Huskies won a conference championship.

Highland won the Southeast Iowa Super Conference title by a single point over Wapello.

Highland and Lone Tree shared a program and won the title in 1997.

'The conference was very evenly matched this year,” said Highland coach Derick Ball, who is in his second year at the helm of the Huskies. 'We knew we needed everybody to score points if we were to have a shot. That is what happened and I couldn't be more proud of the kids.”

The Huskies crowned just one individual conference champion when Brady Hahn won at 145 pounds. Hahn has a record of 31-3. He scored a major decision of 14-2 in the title match, winning bonus points for the Huskies.

'Brady wrestled so well,” Ball said. 'He wrestled the Pekin kid for the title and they had each won once. Brady really controlled him and got us bonus points.”

To win a team title, it takes contributions from up and down the lineup, along with bonus points from pins and major decisions. The Huskies had four guys place that would not have if they wrestled to their seed.

'Top to bottom, everybody went hard in every single match. Everybody wrestled to their seed or better,” Ball said. 'We got a ton of bonus points and I think that was what made the difference.”

Cory Stewart (28-9) placed second at 152. Geoff Streb (14-17) was second at 132. Dan Burton (20-9) was fourth at 160. Cael Yeggy (20-16) was fourth at 182. Bradley Rogers (8-12) was fourth at 220. Jordan Sosa (17-20) was fifth at 170. Brogan Carolan (7-12) was fifth at 126.

'Streb is a senior and he got a pin in the semis over the two seed that was big,” Ball said. 'Rodgers was a seven seed. Sosa was a six seed. Carolan was a seven. Caedon Harbison, one of our younger guys, got a bonus point win. Stewart had a really good day. Burton has been struggling with an injury. Yeggy was not feeling good and we considered scratching him, but he pulled through for us. Everybody contributed.”

The title was not certain until the very last match of the day. Wapello still had a heavyweight left and he lost in the third-place match. A win there would have given the title to Wapello.

'There were some good things that needed to happen and they happened, so it was a good day,” Ball said.

Columbus/Winfield-Mt. Union had two champions. Chance Malone (23-8) was a champion at 220. Jarod Kadel (35-0) won the 138 title. Chance Colby (25-11) was third at 182. Jose Cerezo (23-13) was fourth at 152.

Jonah Clark (32-7) was third for WACO at 120. Jalen Collins (32-7) won third at 126. Robert Frazer (23-15) was fourth at 145. Ben Schlatter (25-16) was fifth at 132. Landon Provino (22-13) was fifth at 220.

'The kids set their goals and went out and did it,” Ball said. 'They rally around each other and we have a good bunch of seniors. It has been a long time since this program was able to talk about team goals, so it is kind of nice that we can think about that.”

Highland wrestles next at the Class 1A sectional meet in West Branch Saturday. Districts are the following Saturday in Wilton. WACO wrestles at the Sigourney-Keota sectional. C/W-MU wrestles at the 2A sectional at Solon.

TEAM SCORES - 1. Highland 133, 2. Wapello 132, 3. Notre Dame/Danville/West Burlington 120, 4. Mediapolis 111, 5. Pekin 110, 6. Louisa-Muscatine 108.5, 7. WACO 103, 8. New London 100.5, 9. Columbus/Winfield-Mt. Union 88, 10. Van Buren 84, 11. Cardinal 57, 12. Lone Tree 36