CEDAR RAPIDS — When Waverly-Shell Rock Coach Rick Caldwell speaks, his wrestlers listen. He won’t be mistaken for Charles Schwab, but his advice before the final round of J-Hawk Invitational paid dividends.
Waverly-Shell Rock blitzed the field by winning all eight final-round matches to capture the team title Saturday at Cedar Rapids Jefferson. The Go-Hawks scored 213 1/2 points with seven champions, pulling away after starting the finals behind Fort Dodge and West Delaware.
West Delaware was second with 198 1/2, Fort Dodge third at 183 1/2. Waverly scored bonus points in each final bout.
“We talked beforehand that our guys, who were still alive, they had to score as many points as they possibly could,” Caldwell said. “The final round is worth a lot of points We had a very good final round.”
It was nearly perfect. Only one possible point was left on the mat.
The top-ranked Go-Hawks vaulted into the lead when Tanner Werner and Eric DeVos won title matches by pin at 103 and 112. Werner need just 53 seconds to beat Fort Dodge’s Matt Bimbaugh.
“Everybody knew that we needed to get some bonus points or we probably wouldn’t have won,” said Werner, who finished with three pins and has 15 this season. “That was what everyone’s mindframe was.”
Waverly’s Jordan Rinken pinned Humboldt’s Tre Rutz at 119, and Cody Caldwell gave the Go-Hawks four straight champs by fall with a first-period pin over Waterloo East’s Demterius Taylor.
Jake Ballweg won by major decision at 135, and Keelan Moore followed with a second-period fall over West Delaware’s Brett Yonkovic at 140. Cody Krumwiede won at 215.
“Each guy had a tough guy in the finals,” Cody Caldwell said, “and it was nice for everyone to go out our and wrestle their hardest.”
Ballweg, defending state champ, won a bracket with four ranked wrestlers and another two-time state qualifier.
Jefferson’s Casey DeHoedt, seeded third, won the 189-pound bracket that featured five ranked wrestlers, and was named co-Outstanding Wrestler with Ballweg. He became just the second J-Hawk wrestler to earn the honor. Tim Ironside won it in 1998.
“It’s an awesome honor for me,” DeHoedt said. “This is probably one of the biggest meets of the year for me. I was just really proud to win it for the J-Hawks.”
DeHoedt (22-2) scored takedowns in each period to defeat Fort Dodge’s ninth-ranked Tyler Wingerson, 9-5, in the finals.
“I was really pleased with Casey,” Jefferson Coach Dick Briggs said. “He’s been working real hard. He deserved that.”
Jefferson teammate Conner Herman placed second at 285.
West Delaware had four finalists, crowning champions in 130-pounder Nathan Vaske and Chris Ketchum (22-0) at 145.
Ketchum edged Fort Dodge’s Nate Halverson, 5-4, in a key head-to-head match to lift the Hawks past the Dodgers for second.
“Being undefeated isn’t the most important thing, it’s getting better and beating good competition,” West Delaware Coach Jeff Voss said. “I think he did that today.”