KNIGHTS ARE KINGS AGAIN
Wartburg honors coach with Div. III Duals title
The question of which NCAA Division III program has the top team in the country became much clearer Jan. 14-15 in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
The NWCA Cliff Keen National Duals brought in 16 teams that were ranked among the top 21 rated teams, including the top three in No. 1 Wartburg, No. 2 Wisconsin-La Crosse and No. 3 Augsburg. And when the dust cleared after two days of intense battle, the Wartburg Knights proved to everyone that they are the top dual team in the country this season.
In the finals, Wartburg dismantled arch rival Augsburg, 29-6, in a match that was expected to be much closer. Wartburg lost just two of ten individual matches. It was the largest margin of victory in the five meetings between the two mat rivals in the finals of the National Duals.
“I feel good,” said Wartburg coach Jim Miller, whose team avenged last year’s Duals loss to the Auggies and won the annual eve
nt for a third time. “Our kids wrestled hard. They have great respect for Augsburg. We know they’ll come back strong. I thought we needed to come out hard and we did. It was pretty gratifying.”The only winners for Augsburg were Jeremy Anderson (157) and Ryan Valek (165). Both of those matches were tough wins, with Anderson edging out Justin Hanson, 7-4, and Valek coming away with an 8-6 triumph over Dustin Bliven.
“The finals obviously didn’t go as planned,” said Valek. “If we can get away on bottom, that changes the whole dual. We just kind of started off bad. It seemed like everything that could have went wrong for us did. I’m not making excuses. But we can close this gap big time.”
Augsburg was only somewhat of a surprise finalist, upending Wisconsin-La Crosse, 21-15, in the semifinals. In order to do that, the Auggies captured six individual bouts against the Eagles. But Augsburg’s appearance in the finals was no surprise at all to Wartburg.
“We just expect them to be there because they’ve always been there,” said Miller. “They’re an awesome program. Anytime you win a national championship like this, it’s pretty special. For us it was real special because it is in the dome and this is right down the road and I’m from Waterloo (Iowa).”
“It’s a great rivalry. Last year, we were on the receiving end of the loss. This year we handed it to them. This is what great sports are all about,” said second-ranked Scott Kauffman (174) after the dual.
Wartburg senior Dustin Hinschberger of Belle Plaine, Iowa was named the tournament’s Outstanding Wrestler. The 141-pounder also went 3-0 in the event and got the large Knights’ contingent on their feet in the Augsburg match by posting a 12-2 win over the Auggies’ Josh Hansen.
“Every year, it’s back and forth between us and Augsburg,” said Hinschberger. “It comes down to who is going to get more pins and major decisions. We definitely showed up to wrestle this weekend and got the job done. Winning the National Duals will take us into a snowball effect right into the national tournament.”
Augsburg coach Jeff Swenson was very congratulatory to Wartburg on their performance, but is optimistic about his team improving between now and March.
“Give Wartburg a lot of credit,” said Swenson. “They did a nice job with us today. We knew they’d be tough. We’ll just go back to the drawing board and keep hacking away. We’ve gotten a lot better since December and we’ll get a lot better throughout the rest of the year too.”
Swenson, who is widely considered one of the top coaches in the country throughout all four divisions plans on trying to use the experience to build on for the NCAA tournament.
“We just need to get one percent better a day. I’ll never veer from that. It’s helped us get to where we are. We’ll never lose sight of our ultimate goal which is to peak at the national tournament.”
Kauffman thinks the Knights are operating more as a complete program this season and have improved team chemistry.
“The biggest difference between this year and last year is that we’re gelling as one big unit, rather than three or four different parts,” said Kauffman. “We want everybody putting forth that effort to score bonus points.”
“We have great chemistry,” Miller agreed. “Tyler Hubbard and Scott Kauffman coming back for his senior year was a big key for us. Dustin Hinschberger is a leader all the way around. Akeem Carter has really stepped up lately, and Blake Gillis has been great too.”
Wartburg won three duals in very convincing fashion to capture the national title. After receiving an opening-round bye, the Knights were slated to take on No. 21 Simpson in the quarterfinals. The result was a 51-0 landslide victory, while Simpson dropped down to finish eighth. In the semifinals, Wartburg was devastating once again, crushing a very good program in Luther (Iowa), 35-6.
The Norsemen came into the event ranked No. 5, but finished third behind the strength of a big victory over Wisconsin-La Crosse. Luther head coach Dave Mitchell was pleased with his team’s overall finish of third, especially in the big win over Wisconsin-La Crosse, who was ranked No. 1 at one point this season.
“We wrestled hard,” said Mitchell. “We have a lot of young faces in our line-up after graduating five All-Americans a year ago. Those guys are growing. We train through this weekend because we envision it as a stepping stone to where we want to get at. We had some young guys really step up. Our 165-pounder Greg Merrick went 3-1 on the weekend. He wrestled his heart out and made the difference in our meet with La Crosse.
Coach Mitchell recognized that his squad is a step behind Wartburg.
“They’re (Wartburg) the best team in Division III, no question,” Mitchell said. “We knew that coming in. We had some relatively close matches that we think we can improve on. We’re trying to build for the national tournament. That’s what we try to get our kids to buy into.”
Luther won just two matches (Mike Lopez at 133 and Matt Pyle at 149) against Wartburg, but were in the ball game in many of the individual matches, although the team score did not reflect that.
“If you went through the line-up athlete-by-athlete, (they’re) at a different level. That’s a credit to them,” said Mitchell.
Mitchell thinks this event is very important for preparing his team for the NCAA tournament.
“The two-day weigh-in is big. It’s the only two-day weigh-in we go to. This had a national tournament-type environment to it and that’s good for our kids to experience,” he concluded.
Rounding out the top eight at the Division III Nationals Duals were Wisconsin-La Crosse (4th), Buena Vista (Iowa) (5th), Augustana (Ill.) (6th), Cornell College (Iowa) (7th) and Simpson College (Iowa) (8th).
Relatively-new coaches Mark Schwab at Buena Vista and Mike Duroe at Cornell College seem to have their programs on the right track.
Schwab, the former Northern Iowa wrestler who spent nine years as an assistant at Minnesota, is in his second year at Buena Vista. The Beavers finished 16th nationally before Schwab arrived in Storm Lake, Iowa. This year, Buena Vista is 10-6 after going 4-1 in Cedar Falls.
Duroe, a member of the U.S. freestyle national coaching staff, took the Cornell job late; just before the season started when Drew Pariano departed Mt. Vernon, Iowa, to take an assistant coaching position at NCAA Div. I Northwestern. Cornell opened with a 21-15 win over Delaware Valley (Pa.) and also defeated a solid Ohio Northern team, 28-12, and bested Simpson, 22-16. Their losses were close defeats to Augsburg (21-15) and Buena Vista (18-16).
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