PCM boys split pair of duals at home triangular

MONROE — PCM head boys wrestling coach Rusty Vos did not like the way his Mustangs wrestled during a road quadrangular at Lynnville-Sully on Tuesday.

But the squad bounced back with a much better effort during the team’s only home conference triangular of the season on Thursday.

Five Mustangs won both of their matches and PCM won more contested matches than it lost but split a pair of duals in Heart of Iowa Activities Conference action.

“They didn’t perform Tuesday, but this is our only home dual so that probably factored into it,” Vos said. “They wrestled really hard. I’m proud of them.”

PCM opened its night with a 45-29 loss to Roland-Story but finished it with a 44-31 victory over Nevada.

The Mustangs and Norse split their 12 contested matches, but Roland-Story produced one more pin and took both forfeits in the victory.

PCM was 7-4 in contested matches against the Cubs. Nevada made things interesting with a 2-1 advantage in forfeits.

The dual between PCM and Nevada was back and forth most of the way. PCM led 6-0, trailed 10-6, led 23-10, 23-19 and 41-19 before Nevada rallied to close to within 41-31.

Brenden Lahart (106), Kaliber Fry (132), Mason Hjortshoj (157), Tucker Wheeler (165) and Harrison Brinegar (175) all won by fall and Eli McGriff completed the dual win with an 8-2 victory at heavyweight.

Leighton Overton (126) took PCM’s forfeit and Gracen Lust (138) won 21-5 at his weight.

McGriff won a pair of decisions on the night. Both matches were close most of the way, but he created separation late in the dual against the Cubs.

“He stayed in good position today,” Vos said about McGriff. “He’s starting to wrestle smarter. He needs to know that a lot of heavyweight matches are 1-0 and 2-1. That’s the way you have to wrestle them sometimes. You take what you can get when you need it and then go from there.”

Lahart opened the dual against Roland-Story with a 15-0 technical fall win at 106. Fry, Hjortshoj (13-7) and Wheeler all won by fall, Jared Sutton scored an 11-7 victory at 144 and McGriff’s win was 4-3 in the ultimate tiebreaker.

“We did what we needed to do in most areas against Roland-Story but fell short,” Vos said. “But they came out against Nevada and wrestled well. I knew it would be close. They moved some people around, but it worked out for us more than it did for them.”

PCM has quite a few new faces to the varsity this season. Wheeler (17-1) is currently ranked second in Class 2A at 165 and Fry and Brinegar have plenty of varsity experience.

But six of the 14 weights on Thursday were occupied by either freshmen or sophomores. McGriff (11-8) is a first time varsity starter as a junior and Lahart (10-8) is new to the team after competing for Albia the past two seasons.

“That’s the growing pains of some of these close losses,” Vos said. “The young guys don’t quite understand how important it is to not give up certain points because those factor into major decisions or bonus points.

“They learned a few things on Tuesday. We gave those two duals away.

We saw them fight a little harder and avoided pins tonight.”

Fry, Hjortshoj and Wheeler all were 2-0 with two pins to lead the Mustangs. Lahart was 2-0 with one pin and one technical fall and McGriff was 2-0 with two decisions.

While Fry (17-3) was 2-0, he also put himself in a bad spot and got taken to his back in one of his matches.

“He still does some things the Kaliber way,” Vos said. “That’s why he’s only a blood round wrestler and not a medalist. He knows it. Everyone knows it. He has to be able to wrestle a full match against good opponents and not have those dumb mistakes. He tried to go into a Saturday night ride tonight and got rolled through and put on his back. You don’t do that with decent guys. We’re getting there. Hopefully he can be a medalist when the season ends.”

PCM suffers two close losses at L-S quadrangular

SULLY — The Mustangs were a late addition to the party at Lynnville-Sully on Tuesday, and PCM suffered a pair of close losses during the quadrangular hosted by the Hawks.

The Mustangs took six forfeits in their 48-19 win over Lynnville-Sully but dropped a 42-41 dual to Iowa Valley and lost 38-36 to Albia.

PCM was 2-4 in contested matches against L-S but won the dual because of its advantage in forfeits.

Chase Masterson (120) and Hjortshoj (157) won by fall in their matches and Lahart (106), Overton (126), Lust (132), Easton Morris (150), Wheeler (165) and Landon Siedlecki (190) all took forfeits.

The Mustangs had a 6-5 edge in contested matches against Iowa Valley, but the Tigers won the dual by one point because they took two of the three forfeits.

Lahart took the only forfeit, and Hjortshoj, Wheeler, Fry, Sutton and McGriff all won by fall. Lust also scored a 17-2 technical fall at 132. Both teams registered five pins.

Albia edged PCM in part because the Blue Demons took the only forfeit in the dual. They split their 12 contested matches. PCM had a 6-4 advantage in pins and Albia’s other two contested wins were by technical fall and decision.

Wheeler was 3-0 with two pins, Lahart was 3-0 with two forfeits and Lust, Morris and Hjortshoj all finished 2-1.