Wolverines lead area at NICL wrestling tourney

DENVER – The Dike-New Hartford wrestling team led the area teams in the standings at the North Iowa Cedar League wrestling tournament at the Cyclone Center in Denver last Saturday.
 
D-NH scored 121 points to place sixth out of the 14 teams at the tournament. SH-BCLUW was 10th with 68 points, followed by AGWSR in 11th with 43, Aplington-Parkersburg/Grundy Center in 12th with 33 and Gladbrook-Reinbeck/North Tama with 19 points in 14th.
 
The Wolverines had no individual champions but had five wrestlers finish in fourth place or higher, led by Chase Arends' second-place finish at 285 pounds.
 
Arends lost to undefeated Brian Sadler of Jesup by pinfall in the second period after Sadler hoisted Arends up and slammed him to the mat, with Arends landing on his shoulder first. D-NH head coach Tony Norton said Arends was found to just have a stinger in that area and was iced up after the match.
 
"I think it just kinda scared him for a moment there," Norton said. "It's not too often that Chase Arends gets picked up off the mat like that."
 
Grant Bixby won the 120-pound third-place match with a 9-1 major decision over Cayle Huebner of Wapsie Valley and freshman Kaleb Brouwer won a 13-6 decision over SH-BCLUW's Koty Kruse for third place at 145 pounds.
 
Daniel Graves (195) and Brad Cunningham (220) had fourth-place finishes for the Wolverines, as several D-NH wrestlers had to battle back from tough seeding against a tough conference, including tea champion Denver, which scored 238.5 points and was well clear of runner-up Union (172 points).
 
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