(Story by Stephen McDaniel)
It’s safe to say that the Ankeny Centennial wrestlers haven’t seen the start to the season that they were hoping for.
The Jaguars have been struggling in a battle with injuries and have now dropped their first four CIML Conference duals of the season after Dowling Catholic handed them a 57-15 defeat on Thursday at Centennial.
Second-ranked Dowling won 10 of the 14 matches with all of them coming by fall, technical fall or forfeit. Centennial won three matches with a fall, a 9-8 decision and a forfeit.
Neither team got points at 175 pounds, where there was a double forfeit.
“I don’t have a lot of thoughts,” said Centennial coach Jay Groth. “The thoughts I have, I don’t want to say out loud. We need to get tougher. We need to get healthy, but part of us getting healthy is being tougher. It’s been a rough beginning (to the season), and we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Centennial has been slowed by injuries through the early stages of the season, and its dual against Dowling was no different.
The Jaguars began the year without Cale Vandermark, Ethan Sodergren and Brandon Bogseth in the lineup. Since then, Vandermark and Sodergren have returned, but the team went into Thursday’s dual still without Bogseth, defending state champion Max Dhabolt and Ben Rotert.
Vandermark was one of the lone bright spots for Centennial as the top-ranked 126-pounder picked up the Jaguars’ only fall of the night.
Vandermark bumped up to 132 to take on Dowling’s Amos Guanue and took a 3-2 lead in the second period while Guanue earned a stalling warning. His lead grew to 6-2 in the third period with an escape and a pair of stalling calls against Guanue before Vandermark recorded a late takedown and quickly worked his way to the pin in 5 minutes 32 seconds.
The No. 3 Sodergren later built a 6-2 lead against Dowling’s Jayden Zachary after the first two periods at 150. Sodergren recorded a pair of takedowns in the first period and then opened the third with an escape to put himself a takedown away from being in major decision territory.
But then Zachary managed to rally all the way back and briefly tied the match. Zachary earned one takedown and couldn’t take advantage of a cradle and quickly recorded a second takedown after giving up a free escape to tie the match up at 8-8 with around 30 seconds left.
Dowling opted to give Sodergren another escape, and the Centennial junior was able to avoid giving up a takedown down the stretch for the 9-8 victory.
Centennial’s only other win of the night came at 106 when freshman Drew Gledhill opened the dual with a forfeit.
The Jaguars did have a victory by fall at 165 get overturned into a Dowling technical fall late in the dual.
The Maroons’ Graham Bagby racked up a large lead over Centennial’s Dean Landis by the second period when Bagby recorded a takedown and a two-point near-fall that put him past the threshold for a technical fall while still having the chance of getting a fall.
But in the process of going for the pin, Bagby’s shoulders went flat on the mat with Landis stuck on top of him, which initially led to it being ruled a win by fall for Landis. But after Dowling challenged the ruling, it resulted in Bagby winning by a 16-1 technical fall.
Centennial will close out its December slate on Saturday when the Jaguars travel to Fort Dodge for the Don Miller Invitational.
Here are the match-by-match results from Thursday’s meet:
Dowling Catholic 57, Ankeny Centennial 15
106: Gledhill (AC) won by forfeit; 113: Gannon won by technical fall over Harless, 19-3; 120: Wallukait pinned Hand, 1:01; 126: Bergkamp pinned Mueller, :33; 132: Vandermark (AC) pinned Guanue, 5:32; 138: Simons won by technical fall over Sloan, 15-0; 144: Conn pinned Babcock, 1:09; 150: Sodergren (AC) beat Zachary, 9-8; 157: Amsden pinned James, 1:55; 165: Bagby won by technical fall over Landis, 16-1; 175: double forfeit; 190: Touney pinned Schroder, 1:20; 215: Krause won by forfeit; 285: Hagan pinned Winkel, :33.
