AGWSR making a name for itself

ACKLEY – Sure, AGWSR had its marquee wrestlers with Ali Gerbracht and Trey Lashbrook ranked in the lower weights.

But 182-pounder Jacob Haley, who improved to 7-0 after the Cougars swept a home quadrangular on Thursday, Dec. 12, is hoping to make a name all to himself, too.

Haley remained perfect on the young season with a come-from-behind victory in the opening dual against Waterloo Columbus. He was trailing 5-0 against the Sailors’ Ray Seidel when Haley reversed him to his back for the pin in 1 minute, 55 seconds.

It also helped coach Chad Gerbracht’s team to a 41-39 victory against Columbus as they went on to take 42-33 and 66-6 wins against North Tama and Baxter, respectively.

“He’s doing a better job. We talked to him about wrestling in good positions and not causing yourself more harm than good,” coach Gerbracht said. “We still see little things, forcing himself in bad positions, but he’s getting better at identifying that, that is a good place for him to be, so I like how Jacob is identifying that position.”

Haley himself admits that the first match wasn’t his best.

“I mean, with that first one, I wish I could have done better,” Haley said. “I wasn’t facing my shots. I should have followed through more and kept my head up higher. I think mostly I got lucky, but I’m glad that it happened the way it did and I don’t think I would have been able to get here without hard work, either. I’m really happy with how the season is going so far.”

Haley finished the season 11-6 as a sophomore. He’s more than half way to his total win total last season before the Winter break.

“It (the season) is going pretty good,” Haley said. “I think I will be (turning heads), surprisingly, especially since last year I wasn’t that great, you know? I didn’t have too many wins and all that, so it’s really nice to be someone this year that people are worried about wrestling.”

It has been a while since the Cougars swept a home dual meet, so this was a night for coach Gerbracht to celebrate, especially considering he likes the dynamic going on in the wrestling room.

“A fun group of kids in the room, they showed up tonight, having some fun,” coach Gerbracht said. “They haven’t seen success like (this). Nice to pick up a couple of dual wins. Nice to put some kids in that last dual that hadn’t seen some mat time. Our upperclassmen had no problem with giving up a spot, bumping up a weight to do that.”

A lot of the AGWSR wrestlers are new with five freshmen and a sophomore who didn’t compete last year. But the chemistry has worked for the Cougars so far.

“They’re learning really quick and it’s really nice to see our team growing,” Haley said. “We got second place in the tournament (last Saturday) and it’s been so long since we’ve had been that high in that tournament. And, tonight, we won three duals and we haven’t had that happen in forever. It’s really nice to have that.”

Coach Gerbracht added, “Our freshmen are gaining confidence. Tate Miller, Jared Granzow, hats off to them, they got a couple of wins tonight. We put Tate at JV for his first one just to get over Saturday; that was tough, he had some ringers in there. Tonight he picked up a JV fall and then a varsity fall. They’re coming, just have to see the process.”

The Cougars had to come back from a 21-point deficit after six weights following a forfeit at 220 pounds against Waterloo Columbus, to do so with a win by forfeit for Tate Miller at heavyweight, Ali Gerbracht at 113, Bo Gerbracht at 120, a technical fall for Lashbrook at 126 and two more forfeits for Zach Johnson (138) and Trinity Rodgers (145) to nab the lead for the only time on the final forfeit.

“That one (dual) was hard just because they’ve got kids at different weights that we didn’t know what they were going to do: if they were going to stick with what they’ve done the last couple of weeks, we’ve got kids going down in weight classes due to the descent (weight) plans,” coach Gerbracht said. “It really is kind of trying to get matches for your kids. I know I’ve been bumping my ’26-pounder up here the past two weeks and he’s run into some tough kids, in the long run it’s going to pay off for him. It’s hard right now for him to see that.

“My ’32-pounder, Zach Johnson, he’s a heck of a worker, just a good attitude. He’s just running into hammers. I thought we were going to pull out a win in the second dual there, but you’ve just got to keep working on the little things.”

In some cases, it was hard for all of his wrestlers to get matches in, especially since Baxter brought only six wrestlers and North Tama didn’t have many in the lower weights.

For example, Ali Gerbracht and Bo Gerbracht only had one match wrestled out of three. Lashbrook, too, won by a pair of forfeits because of juggling weights around in the finale to match up talent in maches.

“It is what it is,” coach Gerbracht said. “I’m glad she got one. I didn’t want a kid to come in here and not get any matches. Originally, it looked like Bo was going to get three forfeits tonight, so I was happy that he got that and we were in position so they all could get matches.

“Lane Abbas, stepping up, I told Trey, ‘it’s not going to do you any good, the other kid any good; how about we put two kids together that match-up a little bit better?’ And that was a great match. It’s just some things that Lane is working on and he’s been working on the sport for a couple of years, so he’ll get it.”

AGWSR 41

Waterloo Columbus 39

152– Caden Hartz (WC) pinned Ben Puente Moralles 2:30; 160– Carson Hartz (WC) dec. Brody Roder 7-4; 170– Alex Buser (WC) pinned Daniel Alariksson 1:39; 182– Jacob Haley (AGWSR) pinned Ray Seidel 1:56; 195– Connor Knudtson (WC) pinned Jared Granzow 1:00; 220– Aidan Schmitz (WC) won by forfeit; 285– Tate Miller (AGWSR) won by forfeit; 106– Gavin Reed (WC) pinned Coltan Richtsmeier 1:54; 113– Ali Gerbracht (AGWSR) won by forfeit; 120– Bo Gerbracht (AGWSR) won by forfeit; 126– Trey Lashbrook (AGWSR) won by tech fall over John Hackett 17-0, 3:56; 132– Sam Hackett (WC) pinned Jayden Bowles 2:42; 138– Zach Johnson (AGWSR) won by forfeit; 145– Trinity Rodgers (AGWSR) won by forfeit.

AGWSR 42

North Tama 33

160– Brody Roder (AGWSR) pinned Noah Weber 5:22; 170– Daniel Alariksson (AGWSR) won by forfeit; 182– Jacob Haley (AGWSR) pinned Clay Hershberger 3:31; 195– James Hill (NT) pinned Jared Granzow 1:36; 220– No match; 285– Xander Bradley (NT) won by forfeit; 106– Ali Gerbracht (AGWSR) won by forfeit; 113– Bo Gerbracht (AGWSR) pinned Cale Bradley 0:59; 120– Trey Lashbrook (AGWSR) won by forfeit; 126– Jayden Bowles (AGWSR) won by forfeit; 132– Zane Nelson (NT) dec. Zach Johnson 6-5; 138– Sam Snyder (NT) pinned Trinity Rodgers 2:27; 145– Ashton Bradley (NT) won by forfeit; 152– Cory Isenhower (NT) pinned Ben Puente Moralles 2:45.

AGWSR 66

Baxter 6

170– Brody Roder (AGWSR) won by forfeit; 182– Jacob Haley (AGWSR) pinned Ealis Hill 0:34; 195– Jared Granzow (AGWSR) pinned Jackson Bottorff 0:31; 220– No match; 285– Tate Miller (AGWSR) pinned Micah Kearns 0:32; 106– Ali Gerbracht (AGWSR) pinned Curtis Gliem 0:28; 113– Bo Gerbracht (AGWSR) won by forfeit; 120– Cole Smith (Bax) dec. Lane Abbas 8-7; 126– Trey Lashbrook (AGWSR) won by forfeit; 132– Jayden Bowles (AGWSR) won by forfeit; 138– Zach Johnson (AGWSR) won by forfeit; 145– Trinity Rodgers (AGWSR) won by forfeit; 152– Ben Puente Morales (AGWSR) won by forfeit; 160– Brad Mathews (Bax) dec. Eli Brandt 4-1.