April 19, 2024

Roland Strong: PCM’s Roland wins school’s first state title

By Troy Hyde

Sharing a very public private moment with his parents is Lucas Roland after the Prairie City-Monroe junior claimed the Class 2A 170-pound state championship Saturday during the 2018 Iowa High School State Wrestling Championships at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines. Following his 5-1 win on the mat, Roland went into the crowd to hug his mother Jeri, who is battling cancer, and his father Dan while the crowd gave the family a standing ovation. It is Roland’s first state championship. (Troy Hyde)

DES MOINES – His mom’s battle with cancer, a burnt down barn and redemption.

Prairie City-Monroe’s Lucas Roland had a lot of motivation this week at the Iowa High School State Wrestling Championships.

And Roland turned his motivation into the school’s first individual state championship Saturday at Wells Fargo Arena.

The Mustang junior 170-pounder put together his best performance of the weekend on the mat against Class 2A top-ranked Kolton Bartow of Dubuque Wahlert, and it resulted in a dominating 5-1 victory in front of a sold old championship night crowd.

Roland is the school’s first individual champion. He caps his season at 49-1.

“It’s been a tough year for their whole family. All of those things just fueled him. There was some extra drive for sure,” PCM coach Jeff Nicholson said. “This was definitely something listed on our goals. We thought all along we had a few guys in the room that could win a state title.”

Roland wrestled with an incredible amount of emotion and adversity this season. In the offseason, a barn on Roland’s family farm burnt down. Then just before the season officially started, Roland’s mother, Jeri,was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The battle on the mat to win his first state title is nothing compared to what his mom has had to deal with the past six months.

“She’s my everything. She’s my mom,” Roland said. “She has been fighting right there alongside with me. I know that as long as I fight and give it everything I have out here, she’ll do the same for me. I just tried to keep fighting all season.”

The match itself against Bartow, who defeated Roland twice at last year’s state tournament, was controlled by Roland most of the way.

Roland fought off a shot by Bartow early in the first period and then went up 2-0 with a takedown with about 30 seconds to go. He rode out Bartow the rest of the period and took a two-point lead into the next two minutes.

“It was a confidence booster,” Roland said on getting a nearly takedown. “He got in on a shot and I stayed out of it. That helped me show that he wasn’t going to take me down. I wasn’t going to just rest easy.”

After an escape in the first few seconds of the period,Roland took Bartow down again to go up 5-0. He held that lead through the second quarter.

Bartow’s only points of the match came on an escape in the third period.

Not even a 5-0 lead was comfortable for Roland, who had learned from his experience against Bartow last year. Roland held leads in the third period against Bartow last year and lost both by close decisions.

That was on his mind this time around, but he wouldn’t be denied a state title he has been working towards since he was a young child.

“I knew I couldn’t stop moving. Last year, I stopped moving and it cost me. I was thinking about last year the whole time in thethird period,” Roland said. “My focus has been on redeeming myself from last year. I wasn’t going to lose this one.”