The Ankeny Centennial wrestlers picked a good time to have one of their best days of the season.
The Jaguars placed second among eight teams in a Class 3A district tournament on Saturday at Iowa City High. More importantly, they qualified 10 wrestlers for the state tournament.
“It’s been a long season,” said Centennial coach Jay Groth. “We’ve definitely had more downs than we’ve had ups, but the guys really wrestled well today. We had a great final round. We had 11 guys wrestling, and 10 of them won. I give all the credit to my coaches for getting in the kids’ heads this week and telling them that we’re in a great district for us, and that we have some great opportunities to qualify for state.”
North Scott won the district title with 211.5 points. Centennial finished with 194.
The Jaguars crowned three individual champions. Cale Vandermark at 126 pounds, Ethan Sodergren at 144 and Max Dhabolt at 175 each captured their third district crowns.
Vandermark pinned Matthew Williams of North Scott in just 23 seconds in the finals. He raised his record to 33-6.
Sodergren recorded a fall over Collin Kruse of North Scott in 2:36. He improved to 29-9.
Dhabolt, meanwhile, pinned Kepler Carmichael of North Scott in 2:25. He lifted his mark to 13-1.
“Cale had three pins, Ethan had three, and Max had a fall and a tech fall,” Groth said. “They dominated from start to finish and kind of set the tone.”
Placing second for Centennial were Brenden Harless at 106, Will Sloan at 132 and Brandon Bogseth at 215. Cameron Moeckly at 113, Kaden Conley at 150, Dean Landis at 157 and Ben Rotert at 165 also qualified for state by placing third at their respective weights.
Bogseth lost in the semifinals to eventual champ Trey Feist of North Scott, but then won his next three matches to punch his ticket to state. He eventually pinned Nick Milburn of Newton in 5:14 in the second-place match to raise his record to 22-9.
Harless was pinned by Thayer Hagstrom of Cedar Rapids Kennedy in 1:21 in the finals. He is now 20-20 on the season.
Sloan lost by a technical fall to Zyaire Washpun of Iowa City High, 19-4. His record fell to 16-21.
Moeckly got the Jaguars off to a good start in the final round by pinning Alex Martin of Cedar Rapids Kennedy in 2:33 in his third-place match. He will take a 16-19 mark into the state tournament.
“Cameron went out and started it,” Groth said. “He pinned his kid to get third place, and I think everybody else wrestling for that same position was like, ‘Well heck, he can go out and do it. We can too.'”
Conley (7-21) pinned Chris Davis of Iowa City High in 2:46 to earn his third-place finish. He was then pinned by Aiden Robson of Newton in 3:13 in the battle for second place.
Landis pinned Caleb Maurice of Iowa City High in 1:02 to place third. He is now 16-19.
Rotert (15-16) recorded a fall over Waker Black of Cedar Rapids Kennedy in 2:43 in the third-place match. He then wrestled for second, but dropped a 9-0 major decision to Lane Rozendaal of Newton.
“We’re happy,” Groth said. “It was a pretty good day for us. Our goal was to make things pay off at the end of the season, and hopefully we can keep steamrolling like we did today.”
The state tournament begins on Wednesday at the Casey’s Center in Des Moines.