Five Mustangs reach podium at state tournament

DES MOINES — PCM’s wrestling team had aspirations of winning the Class 2A state team championship this season.

The top-ranked Mustangs brought a program-best eight to the state tournament and five of those grapplers returned home as place winners.

But PCM couldn’t overcome a host of adversity.

Senior Lucas Roland became the school’s first four-time medalist, senior Wes Cummings and sophomore Colby Tool each claimed their second state medals and senior Jarron Trausch and junior Payton Drake also earned a medal, but the Mustangs were without a finalist for the first time in four seasons and PCM finished eighth in the team standings.

“I thought we wrestled well as a team but things just didn’t go our way. There were a couple of errors we made that cost us a couple matches,” PCM coach Jeff Nicholson said. “The seeding process didn’t go our way. Anywhere it could have gone wrong it did as far as matchups. It just wasn’t our tournament. There were several things we couldn’t control that put us in places we didn’t want to be.”

Roland, Cummings and Trausch set a high bar for the next crop of Mustangs to come through the program.

But Roland wrestled this season several months after tearing his ACL in the offseason. Cummings also took part in the state tournament under the weather.

Cummings missed all of the state dual tournament with an illness. He returned to action for the traditional tournament but wrestled his semifinal match against top-ranked Skyler Noftsger with a temperature of 100.

The final bit of adversity the Mustangs faced was an injury to sophomore Landon Fenton (22-8). He came into the tournament ranked fifth at 113 pounds but went 0-2 after failing to finish his first match and wrestle his consolation match because of an injury.

“We’ve been training to finish on top, we thought we’d get a couple kids in the finals but we tell our kids that it’s about the journey,” Nicholson said. “This sport teaches you a lot about life. Sometimes you can work hard for something but it still may not go your way.”

Outside of the five medalists and Fenton, senior Cody Wallace (152) and junior Jace Smith (285) went 0-2 on the mat and were eliminated on Day 1.

Cummings, Trausch and Roland were all still able to capture fifth-place medals in their final prep seasons. They leave the program with a combined 489 wins. Trausch (170), Cummings (161) and Roland (158) finish their careers as the top three in victories at PCM.

“It’s really cool,” Roland said. “It’s not where any one of us wanted to finish, but the fact that we all medaled together in our last year was cool.”

Tool was sixth this season after finishing fourth last year. He’s still got two more high school seasons.

Drake advanced to state for the first time this season and brought back a seventh-place medal.

PCM scored 56.5 points as a team. West Delaware won the team title with 76.5 points but second through 10th were separated by 7.5 points. Spirit Lake Park finished as the runner-up with 63.5 points and Clear Lake was third with 62.5.

Tool (46-4) and Cummings (42-4) were the only two Mustangs in the semifinals.

Second-ranked Tool defeated ninth-ranked Oscar Olmos 7-0 at 145 pounds. Cummings battled through his illness to record a 12-4 major decision over eighth-ranked Caleb Swalla of Van Meter/Earlham.

“It was a mental game. I was OK on my first match,” Cummings said about wrestling with an illness. “I held on for dear life against Swalla. That one wiped me out.”

Sixth-ranked Drake (37-11) started the Mustangs’ run of pins in the consolation round at 120 when he got ninth-ranked Kyler Dunn of Spirit Lake Park in a cradle late in the second period.

“I saw him in the first match that he was susceptible to the cradle. He was getting tired and it kind of just fell into place for me,” Drake said.

Sixth-ranked Trausch (45-7) scored another pin at 170, getting the fall in the second period against seventh-ranked Dylan Koresh of Charles City. Trausch lost his quarterfinal match 3-1 in overtime to undefeated and second-ranked Sage Walker of Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont.

“It felt good. This is something that I have wanted for a long time,” Trausch said when asked about winning his first state medal.

Roland (30-6) gave the Mustangs more bonus points at 182 when he pinned No. 10 Ethan Reed of Carlisle in the first period for the second time in six days.

“I won’t downplay it, but I need to keep going,” said Roland in reference to becoming the first four-time medalist at PCM. “It felt good, but I am not done with what I want to do yet.”

Tool and Cummings both lost their semifinal matches on Friday night. Roland and Trausch stayed in line for third place but Drake moved to the seventh-place match with a loss in his consolation bout.

The losses pushed PCM from second to seventh in the team standings, and they couldn’t make their way back into the top three the rest of the weekend.

Tool lost for the first time since the first tournament of the season in the semifinals. He rallied to force overtime in the final seconds against top-ranked Joey Busse of Humboldt but lost 4-2 in SV-1.

Cummings only lost to one 2A wrestler this season coming into the state tournament, but top-ranked Skyler Noftsger of Ballard pushed Cummings to the backside with a 10-7 win.

“Wes didn’t have much in the tank,” Nicholson said. “He had a fever of around 100 for his semifinal match. He did what he needed to do because it was his last trip through.”

Roland won his consolation match at 182 by fall against unranked Dylan Jeffers of Keokuk and Trausch claimed a 7-6 win over ninth-ranked Jax Flynn of Solon at 170, but Drake fell 9-3 in his consolation wrestleback at 120 to third-ranked Caleb Fuessley of Center Point-Urbana.

Wallace started his tournament with a major-decision loss to fourth-ranked Zack Bevans of Solon. In the consolation wrestleback, Wallace (36-13) rallied from a 4-0 deficit after two periods to tie the score at 7-all at the very end of regulation.

Gilbert’s Carson Johnson won the match 9-7 in SV-1 to eliminate the PCM senior.

Smith (29-20) lost his first match by second-period pin and then was eliminated when he was pinned in the first period.