Several Lake Mills wrestlers competed in the district tournament at NIACC on Saturday, and one of them will advance to the state individual tournament.

Slade Sifuentes punched his ticket to the Iowa state wrestling tournament with a dominating performance, according to a press release. In the first match of the day, Sifuentes wrestled a strong, controlled match and won by a 12-2 major decision over Tery Rumans of Ackley-Geneva-Wellsburg-Steamboat-Rock. After his semifinal win, he took only 33 seconds to dispose of Don Bosco’s Spencer Bruess.

“Slade wrestled wisely in the semifinals, as he stayed in position at all times to minimize the risk of getting caught,” said Lake Mills coach Alex Brandenburg. “Once he got to the finals and knew he would be going to Des Moines, he let things fly and made quick work of his opponent.”

Sifuentes, who is currently ranked second, will face Devin Thompson of Westwood (Sloan) in the first round of the state tournament Thursday morning.

“I am so happy for Slade, because he has worked so hard for this,” Brandenburg said. “Everyone could see the relief he felt by getting through districts after some tough luck last year.”

Two Bulldogs narrowly missed out on a trip to state with third place finishes over the weekend.

Freshman Kyle Beery was in a back and forth match in the semifinals when he was pinned by Logan Lutgen of Don Bosco. Beery battled back and won the third place match 11-5 over Nathan Schmitt of Dike-New Hartford.

Senior Spencer Jensen was pinned in the semifinals by West Fork’s Jarel Arbegast before capturing a 4-2 win over Chris Holt of Central Springs.

“Kyle wrestled very well today and was close to getting a pin in the semis that would have gotten him through,” Brandenburg said. “Spencer has had an amazing season, and we can always count on him to give everything he has each time out.”

The final two Lake Mills wrestlers to qualify for districts were junior Michael Olsen and sophomore Alex Martinson.

Olsen suffered two straight setbacks against ranked opponents, and Martinson was unable to compete.

“Michael had a tough bracket and was unable to repeat the magic he produced last weekend,” Brandenburg said. “Alex has wrestled really well late in the season, and it was great he was able to qualify for districts.”