The Lake Mills wrestling team won the district tournament and will send six individual wrestlers to the state tournament.

Lake Mills ran away with the 15-team district by racking up 116 points, 31 more than second place Emmetsburg.

Nine wrestlers competed, and six qualifiers ties the second most in school history.

“The kids all wrestled very well today,” said coach Alex Brandenburg. “For us to get six qualifiers each of the last two seasons is really exciting.”

The Bulldogs started well from the beginning, as their bottom three weights all qualified. Jack Ramaker punched his ticket by pinning Ryan Duckett of St. Edmond in a wrestleback after splitting his first two matches of the day. Caiden Jones pinned both his opponents to cruise to his second state appearance.

The ball kept rolling as Tyler Helgeson notched a pin and a decision to win a district title and qualify for the second year in a row.

“Jack impressed me in the wrestle back by coming out and getting a quick pin over a kid who gave him a tough match last week,” Brandenburg said, “Caiden and Tyler wrestled well and really dominated all day.”

The other trio of qualifiers were scattered throughout the line-up. Casey Hanson shrugged off an opening round loss and came back to get a pin before beating Ethan Berven of Emmetsburg, 6-3 in the wrestleback. Fellow freshman Elijah Wagner won a hard fought 3-1 match in the semifinals to notch his first state appearance and lost a tough overtime match in the finals. The final qualifier was team leader Gabe Irons, who got his 150th career win with a 25 second semifinal pin and won by injury default in the finals.

Like Jones and Helgeson, Irons is making his second straight trip to Des Moines.

“Casey was determined to make it to state, and it showed by his grit in his last two matches,” said Brandenburg. “Elijah making it to state as a freshman as an upper weight is quite an accomplishment, and Gabe just continued the roll he has been on.”

Kyle Beery, Drae Love, and Max Johnson competed and wrestled very well, but were unable to advance. Beery dropped the semis to a ranked opponent and picked up a pin in the third place bout. Johnson lost to a ranked opponent in the semis, defeated a wrestler who beat him earlier in the season to earn a wrestle back, but lost a hard fought match.

Love lost both matches but wrestled his semis opponent much closer than earlier in the season.

“Kyle, Drae, and Max are probably our most improved wrestlers since break,” noted Brandenburg, “These guys have nothing to hang their heads about because they all wrestled great today.”