The Clarion-Goldfield-Dows boys wrestling team recently completed a remarkable season with numerous accolades.
The team won the North Central Conference titles in the dual season and traditional tournament, placed third in Class 2A at the dual team state tournament, and had 10 qualifiers in the individual tournament.
“Not many teams can say they had the season we had,” Head Coach Cory Yoder says. “Winning the Cliff Keen Tournament, winning districts, regional dual champion, third place at dual state, winning both conference titles. Not many teams can say that. And the thing is, we have nine of those guys coming back. No one talks about Charlie Campbell, who finished seventh the year before and tore his ACL, and he will be back next season. So we’re going to have out of the 10 guys, we’re going to have nine back out of those qualifiers. So next year, Clarion-Goldfield-Dows is going to be back.”
Four placed at the individual tournament. Adrian Phetxoumphone was fourth at 126, Linden Phetxoumphone was fifth at 132, Colin Sesker was sixth at 157 and JT Kelso was sixth at 285.
It was Yoder’s first season as the head coach after previously spending time as an assistant. He says there were many highlights during the season as he followed in the footsteps of his father John Yoder, who was a previous head coach of the program.
“I have a great coaching staff with Slade Sifuentes, Caiden Jones, Dr. Dan Gabrielson, Kurt Morgan, and my volunteer assistant Parker Moritz. Those guys are fantastic. It was a learning experience for me being an assistant for all those years. But I know my dad’s looking down from heaven saying what a great job you guys did. Beating Don Bosco, winning the conference championship meant a lot to me, both duals and the individual tournament. I wanted that for the school so bad. We got that. Didn’t our goal of winning the state dual title, but we got third again. Who can say that two years in a row, third place, not many. So hopefully we can get back there. We want to win that elusive dual state title. And I also want to bring Clarion-Goldfield-Dows was another trophy home with that traditional team. And that’s a big goal of mine that we’re going to set forth to do next year.”
The team’s dual record was 23-5.
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