After a disappointing loss on Thursday, the Ankeny wrestling team bounced back in a big way on Saturday.
The seventh-ranked Hawks defeated all five of their opponents to win the Clyde Bean-Brad Smith Duals at Iowa City High. They raised their overall record to 15-5 with a 48-16 victory over No. 14 Clear Creek-Amana in the championship match.
“With where we’re ranked from a dual team standpoint, going over there we knew that we’d face a couple of ranked teams but we did exactly what we thought we could do,” said Ankeny coach Jack Wignall, whose team rebounded from a 44-26 loss at No. 8 Waukee Northwest two days earlier. “It was a great day not just because we won, but because we saw some teams that we just never see.”
Ankeny won all five of its duals by at least 32 points. The average margin of victory was 54-15.
Ankeny opened competition in Pool A with a 61-9 win over Oskaloosa. The Hawks then followed with victories over Cedar Rapids Kennedy (54-18), No. 23 Cedar Rapids Prairie (54-17) and No. 15 Cedar Rapids Xavier (53-15) to advance to the title match.
Wignall said his team responded positively to his fiery postmatch message on Thursday.
“I don’t know if those work or not,” he said. “We have really been good in not doing that this year even in losses, but I just felt like we didn’t wrestle as well as we knew we could. If that’s what sparked us a little bit, I guess we’ll take it.”
Five Ankeny wrestlers went a perfect 5-0 on the day. They were fourth-ranked Ben Walsh at 113 pounds, No. 3 Truman Folkers at 126, No. 2 Calvin Rathjen at 132, Aiden Winkie at 138 and Cam Andersen at 165.
“I think we were all pretty bummed out about Thursday, but we knew that we had to bounce back and take care of business,” said Rathjen. “I think it motivated us to wrestle even better!”
Kash Johnson at 150, Ryleigh Egeberg at 190 and No. 12 Andrew Haase at 215 each went 4-1 for the Hawks.
“Andrew and Cam were two kids who didn’t wrestle up to their ability on Thursday, but they sure bounced back and wrestled well on Saturday,” Wignall said. “I’m really happy with how they came back and wrestled.”
Ankeny will travel to Urbandale on Thursday for a double dual meet against the No. 22 J-Hawks and No. 11 Norwalk. The regional dual team pairings will be announced earlier in the week, which makes Thursday’s meets somewhat unimportant.
“It’s just a weird schedule,” Wignall said. “Other than pride, it doesn’t really mean a ton.”