The South Tama County sophomore, ranked fifth at 126 pounds, was underwhelmed by his performance in the finals of the Class 2A Sectional 9 tournament on Saturday at Bondurant-Farrar High School. In two wins, Fritz (40-5) spent less time on the mat than a single match, but his brief show of emotion was an example of what the Trojans expect of themselves.

Fritz was the first of five sectional champions for South Tama, which qualified six wrestlers in all for next Saturday’s district tournament in Knoxville.

Seventh-ranked Tanner Probasco topped the 132-pound field after a pair of pins, No. 4 Colton Vest did the same at 138, No. 2 Isaac Judge posted a pin and a major decision at 152, and Kyle Kucera scored a pair of perceived upsets to win the 220 bracket as the No. 4 seed.

Dalton Rosenberg matched his seed at 182 pounds, falling by one point in the championship round while avoiding having to wrestle back for true second place.

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

The Trojans finished shy of last year’s nine district qualifiers and came in fourth in the team standings, unable to claim a sectional championship for the second year in a row while failing to advance to Tuesday’s regional dual team semifinals. Both marks were goals again for South Tama this season, but it will have to move on without those things with districts a week away.

“Those were our goals but at this point in the season we just move forward and focus on our district qualifiers,” said STC head coach Nathan Van Dyke. “There’s still so much more to come that it’s not a road bump. We’re just going to keep moving forward.”

Already shorthanded with three open spots in its lineup, South Tama suffered the loss of heavyweight Mario Moncada to a broken collarbone from last weekend’s WaMaC Tournament. In their quest to return to the regional dual team semifinals, the Trojans were unable to score enough points to keep up with Saydel (190), PCM (185) and Knoxville (177). South Tama (170.5) finished fourth, instead, but the season goes on for six Trojan matmen.

“We’ve been talking all week about peaking at the right time and last week we didn’t perform our best at conference,” said Vest (42-1). “We still pushed our conditioning this week and coming out with six into districts, I think we can get them all through.”

Vest was as dominant as any wrestler in the gym on Saturday, winning twice by fall to earn his second-straight sectional title. He pinned PCM’s Chase Shirk in 57 seconds in the semifinals before decking Grinnell’s Lane Milner in 4:43 in the finals.

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

Vest (42-1) jumped out to an 8-2 lead after the opening period, scoring a pair of three-point near-falls, but a late reversal for Milner nearly kept Vest from the top of the podium. Vest eventually got the pin he had approached on four separate occasions earlier in the match, but wasn’t overjoyed with the result.

“We knew this Wilner kid was dangerous because last year he ran into Probasco and they had some close things happen with throws,” said Vest. “All week we were stressing to not get in that situation.”

Probasco (42-4) endured the most savvy bracket of the sectional, beating a pair of wrestlers with state experience on his way to the title at 138. Vest pinned Bondurant-Farrar’s Walter Long in 1:26 in the semifinals before flattening Saydel’s Klayton Keller in 3:29 in the finals.

Probasco, in claiming his third sectional championship, gave a little fist-pump after the referee slapped the mat. In a back-and-forth bout, Probasco and Keller traded the upper hand and both scored near-fall points against the other.

“It wasn’t the best match I’ve wrestled, so just getting that win and qualifying for districts is what the goal was for this week so I was pretty excited about that,” said Probasco. “It means a little bit but it’s nothing compared to the main goal.”

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

Fritz, who won his semifinal by first-period pin before scoring a 16-1 technical fall against Saydel’s Cody Lehman in the 126 finale, gave a disappointed look after the referee raised his hand.

“It’s just how our coaches want us to wrestle and how we have expectations for ourselves and knowing that we could have done better,” Fritz said of his expression. “We’re going to take that into this week of training and keep that in the back of our head and push ourselves this week and get ready for districts. We really want to go out there and show people how hard we work in practice and how we push ourselves.”

Judge (40-4) did exactly that, too. He pinned Grinnell’s Bryson Cline in 2:08 before racking up a 14-2 major decision against Knoxville’s Riley Spaur in the 152 finals.

Kucera (12-13), who was out with an injury until the holiday break, returned to the lineup in January as a heavyweight but got himself down to 220 two weeks ago. He improved to 8-2 wrestling at 220 with a semifinal pin and a 4-2 overtime triumph against top-seeded Chase Bellon of Knoxville in the finals.

“That meant a lot,” Van Dyke said of Kucera’s sectional title. “He’s a senior and he’s got a losing record. You can look at [his wins] as upsets, but he was a district qualifier last year and he didn’t start wrestling this year until January because of a football injury. We had an idea he could compete with these guys.”

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

Rosenberg (32-10) reached the 182 title match with a semifinal pin of Knoxville’s Cameron Brown, but Saydel’s Trevor Sprague scored the go-ahead takedown with 6 seconds left for a 4-3 decision in the championship.

South Tama did not have to endure any wrestlebacks, but there were not enough points on the back side of the bracket to get the Trojans into the top two. Pedro Rodriguez (152) and Josh Theisson (160) finished fourth, Tanner Walz (170) and Daniel Ochoa (285) were fifth and Cael Kellogg (195) came in sixth.

“I feel good about the six we have through,” said Probasco. “I know this week in practice we’re going to push ourselves to be even better than we were this week and I have a lot of faith in the six guys we’re taking to districts.”

“Just hopefully we all peak at the right time,” added Fritz. “I have a lot of faith for our team.”

Team Standings — 1. Saydel 190, 2. PCM 185, 3. Knoxville 177, 4. South Tama County 170.5, 5. Grinnell 156, 6. Bondurant-Farrar 141.5.