DES MOINES — Nicholas Wise stood on the second-highest step with his silver medal — serious, solemn and stoic. He represented the Marshalltown High School wrestling program to the best of his ability and he was thankful for the opportunity to do it.

That was on the outside.

Not far beneath the surface of that otherwise squirrelly and sprightly ball of energy was the heartache of a wrestler who wasn’t ashamed to admit he yearned for just a little bit more.

Wise got the blue and red of Bobcat Nation back to Saturday night’s finals of the IHSAA State Wrestling Championships for the second year in a row, but his inevitable journey fell one win short of the title Wise so richly deserved.

The Marshalltown senior who had sacrificed everything to get to where he was had nothing left to give when Southeast Polk senior Wil Oberbroeckling emerged from their Class 3A 144-pound state title bout with his hand in the air after a 3-1 decision on Saturday night at the Casey’s Center in Des Moines.

Wise was the seventh-place finisher at 138 last season, when then-senior Xayvion Anderson was the runner-up at 165. The back-to-back Bobcat state finalists represented the first such occasion in program history since MHS had runners-up three years in a row with Chris Lukan in 1995, Aaron Tecklenburg in 1996 and Jeremy Hendricks in 1997.

Trying to become the Bobcats’ first state champion since heavyweight Pedro Gomez in 2013, Wise came up just short — not in effort or heart, but in execution.

“It was a tough match, it was a good match, I’m thankful that I was able to be here and to be competing for the first-place spot, and I’m thankful for everything that I’ve gotten up until this point,” Wise said after Saturday night’s awards ceremony. “It was a fun match to wrestle, it was good, and I’m happy where I’m at.

“I’m not happy with the result.”

Oberbroeckling, a Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville commit, got the move of the match midway through the second period when he scored two nearfall points when he caught Wise in a brief suck-back scenario along the edge of the mat. Wise was never in danger of being pinned, but a quick two-count put him down on the scoreboard just the same.

“I think it was just lucky,” Wise said. “It was on the edge of the mat and we both tried to scramble out, and he just caught me off-guard.”

Wise was unable to escape and went into the third period trailing 2-0, and Oberbroeckling close the bottom position for the final two minutes.

Try as he may to turn Oberbroeckling, Wise had no success, but he did score a point as the Southeast Polk senior was tagged for stalling on the bottom with one minute remaining.

Down 2-1, debating whether to continue trying for the turn or to cut Oberbroeckling will be the juncture in the match that Wise will go back to in his mind, as will his coaches.

“We were definitely thinking that if he doesn’t get some action right away then we’re going to cut him,” said MHS head coach Luke Cross. “But then we got that stall call, so that was beneficial and closed the gap a little bit.

“When Nick got the leg in, then I started thinking we might be able to turn him with this because Nick’s really powerful with his hips.”

The period-long ride neared the edge of the wrestling surface and a stalemate was called with 25 seconds left, and Wise elected to surrender the escape for a neutal restart. Oberbroeckling (31-3) withstood all of Wise’s advances the rest of the way for the 3-1 victory a year after finishing as runner-up at 138.

“My goal was to break him mentally, which I think I did at the end,” said Wise. “He got two back points during the match, which was the reason I lost, but I think I rode him out for the most part. I was the one getting pressure. I was stopping his shots. I was getting to my re-attacks. I just wasn’t able to score any points, but overall I think I broke him mentally, which was my goal.”

Wise finished the season 38-2, his high school career 140-34, and with two medals in tow.

“It’s extremely tough,” Wise said through tears. “I’ve had a lot of close matches, I’ve lost a lot of matches, but I’ve never lost something that close and that important. It’s, it’s really tough to lose that match the way I did.”

Cross can only hope Wise’s impact on the program going forward can replace what he meant to Bobcat wrestling while Wise was an integral part of it.

“I told him what he’s done for our program is huge,” Cross said. “It’s leaders like him that are building our program, and he’s one of the key people in our recent success. We’re super-proud of his efforts there and he’ll be forever in our program’s heart, and in my heart as well.”

The feeling, Wise said, is mutual.

“I love being a part of this team,” he said. “I love everybody on it. I love being a Bobcat. I love wrestling with everybody. I love the coaches. I love the fans. I love everything about this, and it means the world to me to be able to do this one last time.”

Wise’s only other loss this season was to second-ranked Ames freshman Jaimon Mogard, who finished third in the 144-pound bracket. Oberbroeckling beat Mogard 4-2 in their semifinal match.

“I don’t know why these things happy, but I do know that there’s a reason for it,” Cross said. “We might not, and he might not realize it until 10, 20 years down the road, but whatever happened out there tonight I think happened for a reason, and it’s going to fuel him. Whether that’s at the collegiate level or in the coaching world, it’s gonna be a fuel for him in a positive way.”

Zednichek charts fourth

Dalton Zednichek missed more than a month of his senior wrestling season because of a broken bone in his hand, but he was ranked before the injury and still there when he returned to the lineup a week before districts.

Talk about making up for lost time.

Zednichek capped his senior campaign with a fourth-place finish at 190 pounds, going 4-2 over the four-day state tournament to achieve more than even he thought he could.

That doesn’t mean he didn’t set out to get it just the same.

Zednichek scored a 4-0 decision over Fort Dodge’s Jesse Egli in the consolation semifinals on Saturday morning, but he was bested by Muscatine’s Andy Franke in the third-place match in a stunning loss by fall with 12 seconds left.

Zednichek led 4-2 as the match neared its end, but the Bobcat senior couldn’t turn off his forward aggression. Still on the attack, Zednichek walked right into the headlock and throw Franke needed to rally up a victory.

“I know I could have won that, and it was right there,” Zednichek said in his first words after the match. “I got myself stuck in a hand fight and he got my arm deep, and he threw his arm around my head and I got put in a headlock.”

It was so tight and secure that Zednichek barely resisted once Franke (44-2) got him to the mat.

It turns out discretion is truly the better part of valor.

“Really what needed to happen was just to stay away,” said Cross. “We could have given up three stall calls and it would have been fine.

“That kid is really good at freestyle and Greco, so he knows how to throw, and obviously he went for broke at the end there and got us.”

It wasn’t a mystery, but that’s why they keep wrestling for the full six minutes. Anything can and does happen.

Zednichek, ranked eighth, finished his abbreviated season with an 18-3 record while going 97-50 for his career. He beat Fort Dodge’s Egli for the first time since they first faced each other going back to seventh grade, and his only losses this year were to opponents ranked first or second.

Zednichek’s only regular-season loss came to 2A No. 1 Maximus Purdy of Davenport Assumption, who won the title, and his first loss at the state tournament was to the top-ranked eventual champion Brayden Koester of Bettendorf.

And Zednichek had Franke, ranked second, all but beaten.

“That’s gonna sting for, well, maybe forever,” Cross said. “There’s a time to do things and a time not to do things, and that was the time to run away.”

Regardless of that one that got away, Zednichek was elated to have the fourth-place medal around his neck at the end of his senior season.

“I don’t know what my future holds for wrestling, but I’ve just gotta appreciate that I got as far as I did,” he said through tears. “This is like probably my favorite year of wrestling I’ve ever had, just being there with my team, even though I broke my hand I still got to be a part of the team. Just the mentality wrestling teaches you and the friendships you get along the way means everything.

“It sucks that it’s over.”

It’s been quite the journey for a kid who started out 17-21 as a freshman before turning the corner and coming up with back-to-back seasons of nearly getting to state. Zednichek went 32-11 as a sophomore and 30-15 as a junior before committing the offseason to wrestling for his final run.

“There was one point we weren’t sure if he was going to be able to come back at all (from his broken hand),” Cross said, “but to just power through that adversity and be always joyful despite his circumstances, he just knew that he was gonna be back and he was gonna be fine, and I think that positive mindset of his is really what got him to this, this far in the tournament.”