The Ankeny girls’ wrestling team advanced to the championship match of the Border Brawl on Saturday before running into a familiar foe in the gym at Council Bluffs Lewis Central.
Ankeny defeated its first four opponents in the dual tournament to earn another shot at Raccoon River-Northwest, setting up a rematch of the top two finishers at last year’s Class 2A tournament. Raccoon River-Northwest, the defending state champ, won 11 of the 14 matches to post a 56-18 victory.
“This was a great event with four teams in the national high school rankings,” said Ankeny coach Dustin Roland, whose team is now 20-3 on the season. “We wrestled pretty well until the final round, where we let some matches get away from us against conference opponent Raccoon River-Northwest.”
Raccoon River-Northwest had earlier defeated Ankeny, 40-35, in a dual meet on Dec. 11. The two teams also collided at the Central Iowa Kickoff and at the Dan Gable Donnybrook, where Raccoon River-Northwest defended its crown at both meets.
In Saturday’s final, Raccoon River-Northwest recorded seven pins and a technical fall. The team’s other three wins came by a combined total of four points in a trio of narrow decisions.
Ankeny got falls from Trudy Haag at 120 pounds, Aliayah Shade at 170 and Aysia Moser at 235. Those three all went unbeaten on the day.
Shade finished 5-0 and recorded five consecutive pins. In her opening match of the day at 190, she pinned Cloe Sirola of Papillion-La Vista (Neb.) in just 12 seconds.
Moser went 5-0 and had falls in her last three matches.
“Aliayah and Aysia had great days,” Roland said. “The sky is the limit for those two.”
Haag, meanwhile, went 4-0 and notched four straight falls. She pinned Amira Wilke of Riverside (Oakland) in just 14 seconds.
“Trudy continued her consistency this weekend,” Roland said.
Nora Bockes at 115 and Karlie Kruse at 125 each went 3-0 on the day with a pair of falls. Lauren Watson also went 3-0 with two pins before dropping a 7-6 decision to Raccoon River-Northwest’s Addison McGinness at 115.
“Nora got back into action and looked good in her limited time,” Roland said. “Lauren is a completely different wrestler than the first couple weeks of the season. Her only loss was to a ranked girl when we wrestled her up at 115.”
Jammie Krah also had a good day on the mat. She recorded four consecutive falls before being pinned by Raccoon River-Northwest’s Natalie Keller in 3:47 at 145.
“Jammie had a tough week dealing with some family stuff, but she continues to shine on the mat,” Roland said. “She dropped a match (to Keller), but we are confident about getting that match back.”
Ankeny went 3-0 to win the Pool C title. The team opened the tournament with a 63-12 victory over Papillion-La Vista, then followed with wins over Riverside (Oakland), 48-36, and Topeka-Washburn (Kan.), 60-24.
Roland’s team then defeated Norfolk (Neb.), 51-25, in its opening match of the championship pool. That set up the showdown against Raccoon River-Northwest.
Ankeny will travel to Oskaloosa on Thursday for a double dual meet against the Indians and Dallas Center-Grimes.