Cardinals edge Grinnell for first conference dual win

Newton and Grinnell entered the final match of their Little Hawkeye Conference dual tied at 36-all on Thursday.

While Cardinal wrestling coach RJ Brown had confidence in all of his varsity grapplers, having Kaiden Rogers be the wrestler with the dual in his hands couldn’t have been a better situation for the first-year head coach.

Rogers has been the team’s most consistent wrestler this season and he also sports the best record.

Needing any kind of win to seal the Cardinals’ first conference dual victory of the season, Rogers came through with a first-period pin and Newton edged the Tigers 42-36 on Senior Night.

“I talked to him in the tunnel and told him he’s the man,” Brown said about Rogers. “He’s the guy you want to have up in that spot, but I think the rest of the guys were mentally prepared to also do well if they were in that position.

“It was nice to have Rogers there in the end, but I would have taken any of our guys in that last match.”

The Cardinals were 6-5 in the 11 contested matches and all six wins came by fall.

Only three of Grinnell’s wins were by pin and the other two came by decision. The Tigers did have a 2-1 advantage in forfeit wins though.

“We focused this week on the team because this dual was our only event,” Brown said. “We (didn’t) have an individual tournament this weekend. This was a big dual. We didn’t want to give up bonus points and we wanted to get bonus points.”

Before the dual, Avery White, Zander Ponce and Matthew Oghissa were recognized as senior wrestlers. Senior manager Alyssa Bestell also was recognized.

White has been the only senior in the varsity lineup for most of this season. Ponce is out with an injury and Oghissa is in his first wrestling season but did pick up a win in a junior varsity match.

White went up against a familiar face in his varsity 145-pound match. He pinned Konner Jiminez in 56 seconds after going up 4-0 following a takedown and back points.

Jiminez was a Newton Cardinal last year and spent a lot of time going up against White in the practice room.

“We were partners pretty much every day last year and did a lot of stuff over the summer, too,” White said. “We knew how each other wrestled. I just tried to wrestle my best game.”

Newton opened the dual with a win by fall from Sebastian Sorenson. He got a quick takedown at 120 pounds and put his opponent to his back shortly after.

Grinnell went in front 15-6 after three straight wins, but Aiden Robson avoided the pin at 132 against Matthew Mintle. Robson trailed 6-0 before rallying to lose 6-5.

White’s pin at 145 closed the gap to 15-12.

“He’s put in a lot of time. He comes to everything and is at open mat all the time,” Brown said about his only varsity senior. “It was kind of cool he got to wrestle Konner Jiminez, too.

“He just got after it tonight. He’s starting to kick it into gear. He’s starting to figure things out.”

The dual victory also included a strategic decision from Brown. He gave Grinnell’s Maxwell Mintle a forfeit win at 152 and bumped up Lane Rozendaal.

The decision allowed the Cardinals to get bonus points at 160. Rozendaal trailed 2-0 but led 6-4 after one period. He got three back points in the second before securing the pin with 13 seconds to go in the period.

Mintle, a former state qualifier for Lynnville-Sully, is currently ranked No. 8 in Class 2A at 152.

“I respect Max a lot. I know what he does, how good he is and how hard he works,” Brown said. “The tactic to get ourselves the most points was to forfeit there and bump Lane up. I thought he could get a pin at 160.

“I would have liked to have seen (Lane and Max) wrestle, and it would have been a good test for Lane, but it was all strategic math. That’s the best way we were going to put ourselves in a position to win.”

The Rozendaal win got the Cardinals to within 21-18 and Nathan Milburn’s win by fall at 170 put the home team back in front.

Milburn had been out for a bit with an injury but was cleared to return to action on Wednesday. He took an early 2-0 lead and got his fall with 44 seconds left in the first.

Wyatt Weter extended the lead to 30-21 at 182. He also got an early takedown and secured his pin 33 seconds into the match.

Grinnell was given a forfeit at 195 and the Tigers got back in front with back-to-back wins at 220 and 285.

However, Coleby Revell lost by only an 8-3 decision at 220 to keep the Cardinals’ hopes alive.

At 285, Thomas Stadelmann faced 2A No. 7 Gene Blalock. Stadelmann fell behind 2-0 early, drew back even at 2-all but trailed 4-2 after one. Blalock improved his lead to 12-3 before scoring the win by pin just before the final horn in the third period went off.

A Lucas Cockerton forfeit win at 106 set up the final match at 113.

Rogers quickly went up 5-0 after a takedown and back points. He needed just 1:29 to finish off the fall.

“Coach told me before the match to focus on the match, stay calm and do my thing,” Rogers said. “That’s the mindset I wanted to have. I didn’t want to lose that match.

“I have a lot of trust in my teammates that if anyone else was in that spot, they would have gotten it done, too.”

The Cardinals (2-5 overall, 1-4 in the LHC) got off to a slow start this season but have shown signs of improvement since the winter break.

Rogers improved to 13-6 but is 7-1 in his last eight matches. Weter was 5-8 before the winter break but is 7-3 after it.

Brown said the guys are doing the same stuff they’ve been doing all season but more mat experience has led to more success.

Newton’s varsity lineup features four freshmen, two sophomores and six juniors.

“I think there were a couple of matches that have could have gone better, but all together our team did phenomenal tonight,” White said. “We have grown so much from the start of the season. If you asked anybody in our school, nobody thought our wrestling team would be this good. We are doing pretty well.”

Notes: The Cardinals are getting healthy at the right time, but Conner McPartlin is out for the rest of the season with an injured shoulder, according to Brown. … Oghissa’s JV win at 145 was his first career victory. “That’s Matthew’s first win,” Brown said. “This is his first year wrestling so that was a big deal to all of us.” … Keary Sanger (145) got a win in JV action, too. Oghissa’s pin took 32 seconds and Sanger scored a 35-second pin. ... Seth Adams (126) and Jesus Murillo (138) also competed in a varsity match for the Cardinals. ... Grinnell’s Dylan Heater, who is ranked fourth in 2A at 113, did not compete for the Tigers.