The last time the Ankeny wrestlers competed at Carlisle, the Hawks weren’t happy with their performance.
It was a different story on Thursday.
Ankeny, the No. 17 team in the Class 3A dual rankings, recorded six falls and posted a 36-31 victory at No. 12 Carlisle in a non-conference meet. The Hawks evened their overall mark at 5-5.
“We were in Carlisle for districts last year, and we didn’t wrestle very well at all,” said Ankeny coach Jack Wignall. “Carlisle ended up winning that district, and we were pretty hurt by that. So it felt good to get this dual win heading into the holiday break.”
Ankeny trailed the Wildcats, 25-6, before reeling off five consecutive pins. Heavyweight Jack Dorfler started the rally by pinning Adyn Wyckoff in 1 minute 35 seconds.
“Both teams bumped some kids up,” Wignall said. “(Wyckoff) is a pretty good 215-pounder, but Carlisle bumped him up. So that was a really good win for Jack.”
Ben Walsh had another fall at 106 pounds, then Vaughn Houston at 113, Hayden Fontana at 120 and Aiden Winkie at 126 followed with three more to give the Hawks a 36-25 lead with two matches left.
“That pretty much sealed the deal,” Wignall said.
Carlisle won eight of the 14 matches, but only scored bonus points in three of them.
“We worked a lot on mat wrestling this week, which we haven’t ever really done in the past,” Wignall said. “But we just needed to get better on the mat, things like fighting your way off your back and getting escapes and riding on top. All that really paid off tonight. We had some kids who fought their way off their backs, and if we don’t do that, we lose the dual.
“It was just a real productive week from that standpoint,” he added.
The meet was held in Carlisle’s old high school gym.
“It was like a junior high gym, but it was a really neat environment to wrestle in,” Wignall said. “It was fun.”
Here are the match-by-match results:
Ankeny 36, Carlisle 31
106: Walsh (A) pinned Shelton, :24; 113: Houston (A) pinned Zimmerman, :23; 120: Fontana (A) pinned Ruiz-Mwalongo, :50; 126: Winkie (A) pinned Henderson, 1:32; 132: Rider (C) beat T. Folkers, 1-0; 138: Soto (C) beat Perez, 5-0; 144: Hansen (A) pinned Callies, 1:01; 150: Lucas (C) beat Johnson, 12-3; 157: Miller (C) beat Peiffer, 7-3; 165: Streeter (C) pinned Schlee, 1:04; 175: Nordhagen (C) beat Egeberg, 8-2; 190: Hemsted (C) pinned Bernholtz, 2:47; 215: Noland (C) beat Haase, 5-3; 285: Dorfler (A) pinned Wyckoff, 1:35.