Wrestling: Wildcats Push Four to State

By: Nathan Bloechl — [email protected]

Clear Lake, Iowa — The Humboldt Wildcat wrestling team will send four members of their team to the 2019 IHSAA State Wrestling Tournament beginning this Thursday at the Wells Fargo Arena.

Humboldt will see Cole Nelson (106), Joey Busse (145), Joel Osborn (195) and Justin Jones (285) compete after this Saturday’s district tournament in Clear Lake.

Busse was Humboldt’s lone district champion, Nelson and Jones were true runner-ups, while Osborn had to come back and win his wrestle-back over C-G-D’s Colby Lienemann.

Humboldt was close to securing five qualifiers, but junior Cresten Crav#3 en fell to Garrett Seaba of C-G-D.

The 2A brackets were announced Sunday morning.

At 106, #9 Cole Nelson will square off with Webster City’s Camron Phetxoumphone (#7, 36-4). Phetxoumphone defeated Nelson once already this season at the North Central Conference tournament earlier this winter.

At 145, #1 Joey Busse will open with #8 Garrett Jensen of Williamsburg. Buss is an unblemished 43-0 on the year, while Jensen is 38-8.

At 195, UR Joel Osborn (37-8) will lock horns with #3 Thomas Bentley of Red Oak (24-3).

And lastly, at 285, #3 Justin Jones will battle UR Storm Howard (31-13) of Clarinda. Jones’ three losses this year all came by Spencer Trenary of C-G-D, who is the #1 seed in the 285 bracket. He will open with Stone Peckham of Crestwood.

Wrestling will get underway at 6:00 p.m. Thursday evening, wrestling analyst Brad Duffy and Nathan Bloechl will have the call through the entirety of the weekend.