(Greenfield) The Nodaway Valley/O-M wrestling are gearing up for a big finish to the season.
After a jampacked competition schedule in the first half of the year, co-head coach Brad Honnold says they’ve worked in some more practice time in preparation for the stretch run. “It allows for us to focus in on more individual work. We do a lot of live wrestling right now and we are doing a little bit of conditioning. We’ve turned it up and are doing two-a-day practices a couple of days per week to focus on our conditioning, but right now it’s an opportunity for coach Baier and I to get around the room and work individually with kids on some of their strengths and some of the things they need to work on individually. We just want to be ready to go. Once you hit February some kids are ready for that season to be done and we want our kids to be excited to still compete.”
This weekend they’ll see some quality opponents at the ADM Tournament. “There are going to be some quality teams there and some new teams that we haven’t seen like ADM, Dallas Center-Grimes, Ames, a lot of 2A and 3A teams. Teams that we can really test some of these guys with. We’ve got six kids with over 20 wins already this season, but a lot of those have been to the same teams that we’ve seen like Bedford/Lenox and SW Valley. Those are very quality 1A teams, but this is an opportunity to see where we step up with some of the larger schools.”
The Wolverines had a strong night on Tuesday in their quadrangular. They beat Saydel and Van Meter and lost to North Polk. “Elliot Cooney, Jevin Christensen, Jaxon Christensen, and Caelen DeVault in those duals and all season long have been our leaders and the ones that have wrestled really well. That night Jevin Christensen put together a heck of a night. He did have a loss against Saydel, but against North Polk he beat a very tough North Polk kid where he was down 5-1.”
Coach Honnold looks for Caelen DeVault to be among the guys ready to shine at the end of the year. “A kid that has not been able to get a full season in whether it be due to injury of illness. He’s really battling and doing some good things. Maybe not so much to coach Baier and I, but to others around the area he’s opening some eyes. People are realizing this kid is going to be a force and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him make some noise in Des Moines towards the end of February.”
Elliot Cooney is 27-2 on the season and Caelen DeVault is 21-5. Others with at least 20 wins include Zackery Gebbie, Jaxon Christensen, Jevin Christensen, and Trenton Warner.
Nodaway Valley co-head coach Brad Honnold:
