Greene County qualified six individuals for the Feb. 19-22 Iowa High School Traditional State Wrestling Tournament at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines. The Rams wrestled on Friday at a Class 2A District Tournament in Humboldt, which was a day earlier than originally scheduled due to snow in Saturday’s weather forecast. The first and second place finishers at Humboldt in all 14 weight classes qualified for State.

Winning District titles for the Rams and their weight classes are senior Brent Dennhardt (157 lbs.) and sophomore Degan Miller (165). Placing second at Humboldt and also becoming State qualifiers are sophomore Brennan Jacobs (106), sophomore Jaron Jacobs (113), senior Gavyn Winters (120), and senior Marcus Ball (215). This will be Dennhardt’s third trip to the high school State Tournament, the second for Winters and Miller, and the first for the Jacobs’ twins, and Ball. The Rams only entered eight of thee 14 weight classes and the six State qualifiers all were in the finals on Friday. Only Winters had a second place wrestle-back match, which he won by fall in 26 seconds.

The emphasis on the District level is qualifying individuals for the State tournament, but team scores are also kept and the Rams finished in fourth place among eight teams. Humboldt edged West Marshall (State Center) by two points for the team title with North Polk (Alleman) third. After the Rams, Eagle Grove was fifth, followed by Perry, Gilbert, and Southeast Valley (Gowrie).

State Tournament pairings are scheduled to be released by the Iowa High School Athletic Association on Sunday if the weather allows all district tournaments to be completed today. Very few districts moved up a day to Friday with most staying on Saturday.

Class 2A wrestlers take to the mats at “The Well” for the first time at 6 p.m. Wednesday. The tournament starts at 9 a.m. Wednesday with Class 3A up first, followed by 1A, with 2A the last of the three classes of competition. All three Raccoon Valley Radio stations will have four days of play-by-play coverage of area wrestlers in all three classes, plus the action will be streamed on www.raccoonvalleyradio.com.