T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE - The Marshalltown wrestling team is poised for a strong season. Pictured are (from left) first row: Ignacio Macias, Nicholas Wise and Yandel Manning; second row: Edgar Meraz, Eli Hernandez Clemente, Israel Garcia, Josue Corral Coronado, Declan Greene, Nicholas Million and Derek Rivera Acosta; third row: Colby Cross, Dalton Zednichek, Carson Wright, Cooper McLeod, Terry Wyant, Usher Bollas, Luke Stalzer and Jordan Haynes; fourth row: Jaxson Hinkle, Tyler Johnson and John Schoenfelder.

Finding the right combination of wrestlers for the starting lineup will be a bit of a juggling act in the beginning of the season, but one Marshalltown head coach Luke Cross is comfortable with.

The great thing about wrestling season, he says, is the many opportunities afforded his squad so he can learn about its strengths and weaknesses.

The Bobcat boys’ wrestling team kicks off the new season on Thursday, Dec. 4, with an Iowa Alliance Conference North Division dual meet at Ames, and Cross likes where his program is at with the onset of his fifth season in Marshalltown.

When looking over his potential lineup for the upcoming winter, Cross was excited to dismiss the thought of rebuilding in exchange for his belief the Bobcats have reloaded.

“A lot of people have asked me ‘what are you going to do after losing all those seniors? You going to be rebuilding this year?'” Cross said. “And yeah, we lost some great seniors, there’s no doubt about it. But I really think we’re just reloading.

“And as cliché as it is, I think at midseason if this conversation happens again, I’ll be saying ‘yeah, we just reloaded’ because we’ve got a room full of guys. So if we do it right, then we’ll just simply reload the lineup every year.”

Cross said he’s got up to 65 wrestlers in the room across all levels, so the numbers are there. And in looking at his 14-man lineup for the start of the season, he’s got a list of 22 names of contenders.

Competition breeds excellence, after all.

“We don’t really have too many weak spots, to be quite honest,” Cross said. “Our top four weight classes are going to be pretty hard to beat, and then our middle weights are going to be really solid. In my opinion, we’ve got kind of a murderer’s row in there.”

Two of Marshalltown’s state qualifiers from last year return in senior Nicholas Wise and junior Colby Cross. Wise finished seventh in Class 3A at 138 pounds while Cross went 0-2 at 126 in his state tournament debut. Gone to graduation are 165-pound state runner-up Xayvion Anderson, a three-time qualifier wrestling at Grand View University, and Johan Gomez, a two-time qualifier now wrestling at Hawkeye Community College.

There’s no way to ignore their absence from the lineup, but this year’s Bobcats will do their best to make people start to forget.

Wise, Cross and a host of others have spent their offseasons sacrificing everything else for their goals.

“So during this fall, summer and spring I kept on wrestling,” said Wise, who will settle in at 144 this season. “These past four weeks I’ve been to two national tournaments, I wrestle with kids from other states, national competitors. I’ve just been practicing, I’ve been practicing a lot. I’ve been sticking to my diet and keeping my goals in mind just wanting to win state this year.

“Everything I do I’m doing to win state. I had a close match with (eventual champion) Mac Crosson last year and I should have won state, in my opinion. So this year I’m going to win it — no ifs, ands or buts about it. Nothing’s going to stand in my way. I am going to win it.”

Wise went 43-9 last season, falling 1-0 to Crosson in the state quarterfinals a week after suffering a district loss by technical fall to the Indianola sophomore who has verbally committed to Nebraska.

Wise is resolute in his quest, and he can’t wait to see who will be joining him at state this season.

“The younger guys found out pretty quickly what the atmosphere in here is like,” he said. “I mean, we don’t take it light in here. We work hard. We do sprints. So the kids who aren’t able to keep up with it, they might quit or they’re going to get with us and they’re going to become just as good as us.

“This is a great group of kids. … It’s not just a team, I mean, it’s a family now. So I believe that with this family that we have, we’re going to be able to win a lot more than what we did last year.”

Marshalltown finished last winter with a 19-13 dual meet record, going 2-2 in the Iowa Alliance North along the way. One of those conference losses prevented coach Cross from really relishing last year’s dual season.

“Yeah, I thought it was a good dual season, but unfortunately I feel like there’s a few duals in that defined it not being a great one,” he said. “And that’s where the hunger keeps driving me to get better.

“We lost to Waterloo East and Des Moines East, and they had pretty good teams last year, but we shouldn’t have lost to them. So that’s been a driving factor for me this year is making sure that we have the best lineup possible moving forward.

“I think once we’re in our correct spots, we’re going to be pretty hard to beat.”

Cross’s lineup starts at 106 with sophomore Nicholas Million, who went 23-27 as a freshman and got as many matches as anyone in a Bobcat singlet. There’s an open competition at 113, while junior Josue Corral Coronado (13-27) leads the field at 120.

Sophomores Israel Garcia (7-19) and Usher Bollas (0-1) will battle for 126, while junior Derek Rivera Acosta (2-5) has the edge at 132. Sophomores Yandel Manning and Terry Wyant are the leaders at 138, while Wise lines up at 144.

Cross brings back state experience and is on full feed at 150, while senior Anthony Chavez (2-9) is looking like the leader at 157. Carson Wright, another senior, went 29-19 last winter and will log in at 165, and senior Tyler Johnson (0-3) has a spot at 175.

Seniors Dalton Zednichek (30-15), Ignacio Macias (12-6) and Jaxson Hinkle (20-19) have the experience and ability to finish off a lot of wins in the heavier weights (190, 215, 285) for the Bobcats.

“I’ve got pretty good expectations for the group and for myself,” said Zednichek, who has narrowly missed out on state each of the last two seasons. “Individually, I’m expecting to place at state for sure. I see these rankings early in the season coming out and I see guys at the top that I barely lost to last year.

“I’ve learned so much more over the summer and I’ve gotten a lot better for this season and I’m prepared.”

Macias has that same last-chance attitude driving him, too.

“Me, Nick and Dalton went to a lot of Grand View practices, we just wanted to get better every single day,” Macias said. “It’s a discipline and hard work that just drives us to want to get better, and it’s not just by ourselves, but pushing each other to be better.”

Marshalltown has advanced at least two wrestlers to state in each of the last eight seasons, and coach Cross doesn’t expect that streak to see its end this winter.

“On paper, we look good,” he said.