Lynnville-Sully dominates on the mat, wins just one dual at home tournament

SULLY — Lynnville-Sully head wrestling Cayden Johnson expects his athletes to win more matches than they lose during each competition.

He also knows it’s going to be hard to win duals with six guys in the varsity lineup right now.

The Hawks hope to get state-ranked Jett Kramer back in the middle of January, but Lynnville-Sully dropped two of its three duals at the Ben Van Wyk Memorial Dual Tournament on Saturday.

Lynnville-Sully was 11-2 in its contested matches in the three duals, but the Hawks lost 36-31 to the Ankeny Centennial junior varsity after dropping a 54-30 dual to the Johnston JV thanks to a 13-1 disadvantage in forfeits.

The Hawks downed South Iowa Cedar League rival English Valleys, 30-18. That dual featured only two matches on the mat as the Bears had only four wrestlers.

“That’s normally how that goes,” Johnson said. “We win a lot of matches but can’t win the dual because we give up too many forfeits. It’s nice when the guys go out and look good and wrestle well.”

The scoreboard at the end of the dual against Centennial showed L-S winning 31-30 after Ben Squires won his match by fall at 285 pounds.

But results on trackwrestling.com had the Jaguars winning 36-31 thanks to a 6-1 surplus in forfeits.

The Hawks split two duals with English Valleys. Class 1A No. 4 Matthew Mintle scored a pin in 44 seconds to win his match at 138. Graysen Lecompte (120), Burt Johnson (144), Ashton Schechinger (157) and Squires (285) won their matches by forfeit. There were six double forfeits in the dual.

Lynnville-Sully was 5-1 in contested matches against Johnston, but it lost the dual because the Dragons accepted all seven forfeits.

Mintle, Johnson, Schechinger, Squires and Wyatt Mathis (175) all won their matches by fall. Mintle, Johnson and Squires posted first-period pins.

The Hawks were 5-0 in contested matches against the Jaguars. Centennial edged L-S thanks to six forfeit wins. Lecompte took the Hawks’ only forfeit.

Johnson, Mathis and Squires all won by fall in the first period. Mintle scored a 16-7 win by major decision and Schechinger finished off his 3-0 day with a 10-4 win.

Mintle (9-0), Johnson (10-3) and Squires (11-1) all were 3-0 with two pins for the day, while Mathis finished 2-1 with two pins and Lecompte was 2-1 with two forfeits.

“We can improve with staying on our toes. We get flat footed a lot,” Coach Johnson said. “We’re still working on conditioning. We can get in better shape to be able to go hard for the full six minutes.”

Notes: Class 1A No. 6 Kramer (120) suffered a broken collarbone away from the mat, and the injury is expected to sideline him until some time in January. … Burt Johnson is not ranked at his weight, but his brother and head coach likes the way he’s wrestled lately. “He was off the first few matches, but he’s looked really good the past few meets,” Coach Johnson said. “I’m not sure what changed, but his mindset looks completely different. He comes out on fire and is moving well. He comes out aggressive, and that’s all we’re looking for.”