Indian Wrestlers Win New London Tournament

Oskaloosa Indians

Coming into this season there were a lot of unanswered questions for the Indian wrestling team. They knew their core group, but needed underclassmen to step up to be successful. For Oskaloosa and their head coach Brandon Graham, that is exactly what happened. The Indians stormed back in a big way to beat defending 1A State Champions Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont Rockets to claim the New London Tournament Saturday.

Oskaloosa came into the tournament after a rocky start to the season on Thursday night. They did not wrestle well in their opening duel and were beat by a good Grinnell team. In the second half of Thursday evening, the Indians bounced back and finished off the Chariton Chargers, evening out their record at 1-1 in duals to begin the season.

Oskaloosa started out the day on Saturday with several freshmen and sophomores in the lineup, and they did not disappoint. The underclassmen wrestled tough and, along with the rest of the Indians, sent 7 wrestlers into the finals. In the end, the Indians claimed 5 titles as they roared back through the finals and wrestle backs to claim the title by 2.5 points with a final score of 203.5 points. The Indians were followed by runner up EBF and the rest of the 9 team field.

Claiming titles for the Indians were: Freshman Alex Hanna (120), Sophomore Drew Sams (126), Senior Cody Jones (170), Sophomore Kyler Salazar (182) and Sophomore Callan Tomlin (220). Runner ups for Osky were: Freshman Talon Munger (106) and Sophomore Josh Diehl (113). Osky has three ranked wrestlers in the first state rankings and those are Sams, Jones and Senior Skylar DeJong, who was missing on Saturday.

Claiming titles for EBF were: returning State Champions Jeron Glosser (138) and Blake Marolf (145), along with Dalton Griffiths (160) and Hunter Johnston (195).