Bulldog grapplers drop pair of home duals to North, East

Le Mars wrestling coach Tom Smalley did not have a lot of positives to point to after his team dropped a pair of nearly identical decisions to visiting Sioux City North and Sioux City East on Tuesday.

"I felt better going into (tonight)," he said. "We have a lot of work to do and not much time."

Le Mars dropped its evening-opening dual to East by a 55-15 margin and concluded with a 57-15 loss to North in a meet that Smalley felt lacked a great deal of intensity.

"We gotta get them pumped up," he said of his team. "I think a lot of the fire might not have been there because we've wrestled these schools (before) - I think that's the fourth time we've seen East and three times in the last three weeks."

Highlighting the first dual was junior 130-pounder Anthony Schimek. After East jumped out to a 16-0 lead thanks to a forfeit, a pin and a major decision, Schimek put the 'Dogs on the board as he outlasted Tim Vore for the 5-4 decision.

"He's tough and I wrestled tough and he wrestled tough so it was a pretty good match," said Schimek, who improved to 2-1 on the season against Vore. "I didn't want to do anything stupid to put myself out of the lead so I just tried to be smart. You have to be smart at the end."

Schimek's first victory of the evening did little to halt East's momentum as the Black Raiders won the next eight matches to extend their lead to 49-3. Justin Carpenter finally stopped the bleeding at 215 pounds as he pinned East's Tyler Zimmerman in 1:52.

Fellow Bulldog Chris Stevenson followed with a pin over Alex Bradbury at heavyweight in 1:12 before Le Mars forfeited the 103-pound class to give the meet its final margin.

"We know what we have to work on before districts after watching these kids and seeing what they're doing," Smalley mused afterward.

Le Mars' dual with North could hardly have been more similar.

Schimek pinned North's Kody Kistner in 1:17 to make the score 11-6 in favor of the Stars for his second victory of the night.

"I feel like I'm peaking at the right time," he said. "That's what you need to do. Absolutely, that's where I want to be. I want to be at my peak and get going."

That was it until Brayton Ringsdorf outlasted North's Matt Fagan for a 6-4 decision at 145 pounds.

Kelly Lind recorded a 39-second pin over North's Nate Hernandez at 215 pounds which set up arguably the night's most exciting match at heavyweight.

Le Mars' Stevenson found himself trailing 5-4 late in the third period only to record a takedown with 20 seconds remaining to lead 6-5. North's Charles Richer then escaped with two seconds on the clock to knot the match at 6-6 and force overtime.

But Richer finally recorded a takedown with three seconds remaining in overtime to claim the 8-6 victory.

"Chris has given us some excitement this year," Smalley said. "That's fun - having a heavyweight that has some exciting matches. He's really coming along."

The Bulldogs wrap up their regular season next Tuesday against Denison, Sioux City West and Storm Lake at home. The district tournament is on February 14.

"We've been fighting the flu bug and stuff," Smalley said. "Hopefully we can get rested up for another week."