Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Coaches don’t often enjoy being incorrect.

Jake Slocum has been proved wrong by his team three weeks in a row and the West Branch wrestling coach hasn’t minded one bit.

West Branch claimed its third consecutive tournament title on Saturday rolling to the team crown at the 13-team Regina Invitational.

“What I always say to them is ‘we have three open weights and it’s pretty tough to win a tournament with three open weights so prove me wrong’,” Slocum said. “Today we came in with four open weights and it’s really hard to win a tournament like that so I said, ‘prove me wrong’ and they went out and proved me wrong again and I like that.”

West Branch crowned five champions, had eight finalists and 11 wrestlers finish in the top three on Saturday while racking up 251 points to outdistance runner-up MFL Mar Mac by 69 points.

Ethan Humphrey, Logan Christoffel, Cale Seydel, Cooper Gates and Quintyn Rocha all won individual titles on Saturday as West Branch claimed its third consecutive tournament title in a span of three weeks.

“We have a couple of open weights but coach comes out and says prove me wrong, prove me wrong,” Gates said. “We go out there and try to prove him wrong. Coach doesn’t check the team score all day and he lets us surprise him at the end.”

Saturday’s title put an exclamation point on what has been a strong start to the season and a dominant December for the Bears.

West Branch won the Tipton Invitational by 42 points on December 2 and claimed the Tri-County Invitational by 18.5 points last week.

The title on Saturday was the most impressive yet for West Branch which is also 6-1 in dual meets this season.

“Coach always says, ‘prove me wrong, show me you can win this tournament’,” Seydel said. “We’ve been doing that and when we come to practice on Monday we have fun telling coach we proved him wrong. Then we get back to work.”

West Branch went 5-3 in championships matches as all 11 Bear wrestlers finish in the top three on Saturday.

“Every week we seem to get more people in the finals,” Seydel said. “Once you see a teammate wrestling in the finals everyone wants to be in that spot.”

Humphrey (11-0) started the strong championship effort with a first-period pin of Landon Beckler of Mid-Prairie in the 106-pound title match.

Christoffell (12-1) completed a 3-0 day with a 3-2 win over Gavin Kishman of MFL Mar-Mac in the 132-pound title match.

Seydel (12-2) won the 157-pound title with a 10-4 decision over Will Aitchison of Regina.

The senior went 4-0 with two pins on his way to the 157-pound title.

“I felt really good today,” Seydel said. “I don’t like losing. I just had to fight.”

Gates (13-0) won the 165-pound title with a Jake Moore of a first-period pin of Sigourney-Keota and Rocha (11-1) won the 215-pound champions with a 2-1 win over Dre Smithburg of Fairfield in sudden victory.

“We wrestled really well today,” Gates said. “We had guys up and down the lineup wrestling really good.”

Lincoln Edwards (11-2) was runner-up at 120 pounds, Timmy Hosier (8-5) was runner-up at 126  pounds and Logan Wright (12-1) was runner-up at 285.

Maddux Rushton finished third at 144, Shae Farmer was third at 175 and Tate Frantz was third at 190.

“I don’t want to peak early and this isn’t the time to be peaking but we are 6-1 in duals and we’ve won three tournaments in a row,” Slocum said. “We are going in the right direction and with Christmas break coming we need the break. I always think we get better over Christmas break because we wrestle every day expect for Christmas and New Years day.”

Regina finished third as a team with 163 points getting an individual title from Ian Udell at 190 pounds.

Udell (15-4) pinned Carter Moore of Fairfield in 2:25 in the 190-pound final.

Cash Hatfield (16-5) was runner-up at 138 pounds, Aitchison (6-3) was runner-up at 157 and Leren Fernandez (13-4) was runner-up at 175 for the Regals.

Regina Invitational

At Regina High School

Team scores – 1. West Branch 251; 2. MFL Mar Mac 182; 3. Regina 163; 4. Tipton 151; 5. Fairfield 136; 6. HLV 100; 7. Sigourney-Keota 87; 8. Mount Pleasant 78; 9. Davenport West 73; 10. Wapello 64; 11. WACO 28; 12. Lone Tree 23; 13. North Cedar 7

Championship matches; area placewinners

106 – 1. Ethan Humphrey (WB) pinned Landon Beckler (MP) 1:35; 4. Sawyer Hamilton (ICR)

113 – 1. Cael McCabe (FAI) pinned Brock Nebergall (LT) 4:25; 5. Brendan Baker (ICR)

120 – 1. Jayson Johnson (TIP) dec. Lincoln Edwards (WB) 6-2; 5. Alex Jensen (ICR)

126 – 1. Gavin Sorgenfrey (TIP) major dec. Timmy Hosier (WB) 9-1; 5. Carter Slager (ICR)

132 – 1. Logan Christoffel (WB) dec. Gavin Kishman (MFL) 3-2; 4. Luke Hamilton (ICR)

138 – 1. Holden Mathis (MFL) dec. Cash Hatfield (ICR) 9-6

144 – 1. Zach Harbison (WAP) pinned Logan Lanning (TIP) 3:12; 3. Maddux Rushton (WB); 4. Edwin Gangba (ICR)

150 – 1. Brody Sternhagen (HLV) pinned Jacob Libe (S-K) :53; 4. James Whisler (ICR)

157 – 1. Cale Seydel (WB) dec. Will Aitchison (ICR) 10-4

165 – 1. Cooper Gates (WB) pinned Jake Moore (S-K) 1:43; 6. William Farnsworth (ICR)

175 – 1. Dain Burkhart (FAI) dec. Leren Fernandez (ICR) 5-3; 3. Shae Farmer (WB)

190 – 1. Ian Udell (ICR) pinned Carter Moore (FAI) 2:25; 3. Tate Frantz (WB)

215 – 1. Quintyn Rocha (WB) dec. Dre Smithburg (FAI) 2-1 TB-1

285 – 1. Cole Fontinel (HLV) dec. Logan Wright (WB) 8-4

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