Iowa Black! National Champions

[DAL]

Hawkeyes take AAU wrestling duals title for third time in four years

Monday, April 18, 2005

 

By JOHN MOOREHOUSE

Times-News

 

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KINGSPORT - It might take a 14-hour car trip to get here, but once the Iowa Black wrestling team arrives, the athletes and coaches find that Kingsport suits them just fine.

 

The Hawkeyes defeated the Illinois All-Stars Blue by an authoritative 56-16 margin Sunday to win the 2005 AAU Wrestling Elementary National Duals Championship.

 

For Iowa Black, it marked the third title in the past four years - a string broken only by a runner-up finish in 2003.

 

All four strong finishes have been recorded here in Kingsport.

 

"Kingsport is a really nice place," said Dallas Larson, one of the coaches for the Iowa squad. "The people here are great hosts."

 

Larson's team found itself facing the Illinois All-Stars for the championship for the second year in a row. Last year's finals went to Iowa Black by a 40-26 margin.

 

"This is the worst beating we've ever taken," Illinois coach Dave Unrian said.

 

It wasn't as lopsided as the final score suggested, though. Iowa Black scratched out several wins in a row at the lower weights. Unrian noted that being on the losing end of such a streak easily can deflate momentum - and that it had the opposite effect for his Iowa opponents.

 

Iowa Black recorded a couple of pins in the later weights before forfeiting its final match. The team's heavyweight injured his knee earlier in competition, and Larson said his team knew coming in that weight class would have to be conceded.

 

Unrian also said an emotional semifinal match may have taken a toll. His squad defeated Illinois Elite, a familiar in-state nemesis, by a scant 35-32 margin.

 

"We were drained coming into the final," Unrian said. "But (Iowa Black) just matched up really well with us."

 

Larson agreed.

 

"Iowa Black had great balance," Larson said. "We weren't necessarily outstanding, just that we didn't have any weak areas."

 

Iowa Black almost didn't get a chance to defend its national title, though. Larson said his squad barely survived a highly contentious match against Virginia Thunder during pool play.

 

"Really, that could've gone either way," Larson said. "Iowa's seen nationally as a hotbed of wrestling, but I tell you, the rest of the United States - places like Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey - they're catching up."

 

Illinois is right there as well. All three teams from that state finished in the top six.

 

Iowa Black also walked away with seven individual golds - given to any wrestler who went undefeated in the tourney and wrestled at least five times. Silver medals were given to grapplers with one loss, bronze to those with two losses, and copper to those with three.

 

Competition Sunday was divvied up among the championship, consolation and sub-consolation brackets in the wake of Saturday's pool format.

 

The event drew 19 teams this year - an all-time high in the six years that Kingsport has hosted the national elementary duals. Sixteen teams competed last year.

[tophat]

Thanks for the info DAL, I had another thread asking about this. My great-nephew wrestles for Illinos Elite in the 90 lbs class. Is there anyway to find individual results?

[DAL]

The results should be up on the AAU National Web Site: www.aausports.org

 

Click on wrestling and then click on the National Schedule/Results button.

 

Give me his name and I will see if Kingsport CV&B can go through our records and find his individual results.

 

DAL

[Sommers]

Not only is West TN wrestling looking bright, so is East TN.

 

soms