A year ago, Max Dhabolt made some history by becoming the first Ankeny Centennial boys’ wrestler to capture an individual state title.
It turns out that winning a second championship was even sweeter.
The second-seeded Dhabolt avenged his only loss of the season by defeating No. 1 Jaxon Miller of Carlisle, 7-4, in the Class 3A 175-pound title match on Saturday night at the Casey’s Center.
“It feels a lot better getting my revenge for the loss,” said Dhabolt, who finished with a 17-1 record. “I definitely wasn’t ready to be back (from my injury), and I proved out here tonight that I could go get it back.”
Dhabolt suffered a torn meniscus in his knee during the first dual of the season. He elected to skip surgery and returned to the Jaguars’ lineup last month, but then suffered a 4-2 loss to Miller in the finals of the Ed Winger Classic at Urbandale.
“When he lost to Jaxon, we didn’t really have any doubts,” said Centennial coach Jay Groth. “We knew he was coming back from an injury and he had that brace on his knee, which he hated. Max is really particular about things. If his shoe isn’t tied right during practice, he’ll stop whatever he is doing and fix them–even if we’re almost done. He hated that knee brace so when we were finally able to get rid of that, it opened up his offense and gave him more options. That was good.”
In Saturday’s match, Dhabolt got a takedown and two-point near-fall as the first period ended to build a commanding 5-0 lead. He then added an escape with 1 minute 15 seconds left in the second period to make it 6-0.
Miller (43-1), a Northwestern recruit, refused to go away quietly. The former state champion escaped with 1:36 remaining in the third period, then got a takedown with 59 seconds to go to close the gap to 6-4.
Neither Dhabolt nor Groth was too worried.
“I wouldn’t say he makes coaching easy, but he makes it easier,” Groth said.
After failing to turn Dhabolt onto his back, Miller elected to cut him with 17 seconds left. But he was unable to get the takedown that he needed to tie the match.
“I was confident,” Dhabolt said. “I had way more energy than him at the end.”
Dhabolt led Centennial to a 16th-place finish in the Class 3A team standings. The Jaguars finished with 68.5 points.
Dhabolt will have a chance to become a three-time champion next year. The city of Ankeny has produced multiple two-time champs, but nobody has been able to win a third title.
Groth believes that Dhabolt can complete the threepeat.
“He just does so many things well and knows where he’s at all the time–he has such great body awareness,” Groth said. “In my 34 years of coaching there’s rarely been a kid where we can say, ‘You can go top or bottom.’ He just tells us what he wants to do and we say, ‘Ok, that sounds like a good choice for you.’ We have trust in him.”
In late December, Dhabolt verbally committed to wrestle at Iowa State. Since then, he has been traveling to Ames a few times each week to practice at the Cyclone Regional Training Center.
“It has definitely helped me a lot,” Dhabolt said. “Having a person like coach (Chris) Perry get on you and help you get through stuff is way better. I’m grateful for him and all the other coaches up there.”
Groth said there simply isn’t anyone in the Jaguars’ wrestling room who can challenge Dhabolt.
“I’ve had other coaches ask me, ‘Do you get out there and roll around with Max?'” Groth said. “And I’ll say, ‘Heck no, I’m way too old for that.’ We get some of our assistants out there like (Tyler) Willers, (Chris) Halblom and (Nick) Lawrence, and we’ll have (eighth grade coach) Ethan Babcock wrestle with him too. But Max goes up there to Iowa State and gets pressured by guys who are only a year or two older than him instead of guys who are 15 years older than him. It’s been great to have that connection with coach Perry and coach (Kevin) Dresser.”
