It was a banner day for Norwalk in Saturday’s Class 3A, District 8 Wrestling Tournament hosted by the Warriors.
Norwalk placed third out of eight teams with 179 points, trailing only Southeast Polk with 249 and Indianola’s 196.5. More importantly, the Warriors advanced nine individuals to the 2023 Boys State Wrestling Tournament, which begins Wednesday at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.
Norwalk’s district champions include sophomore Kolton Borcherding-Johnson at 220 pounds and his older brother, top-ranked senior Maddux Borcherding-Johnson, at 285.
Placing second for the Warriors were junior Tyler Harper at 106, junior Tate Turner (132) and sophomore Harrison Tripp (195). And with the state tourney brackets expanded to 24 wrestlers this year, Norwalk’s third-place district finishers also qualifying for state were sophomore Aiden Moret at 120, senior Donovan Card (138), sophomore Kadan Borcherding-Johnson (145) and sophomore Dominic Tigner (152).
Norwalk coach Jacob Brown was pleased with the efforts of the entire team, adding that a few other Warrior wrestlers just missed qualifying for state. Going into the day, Brown felt that eight to 10 qualifiers would be a good day and five to six would be a bad day.
“We’ll definitely take nine guys going,” he said. “Even the guys that didn’t make it wrestled really, really well, honestly. Everybody, up and down the lineup, wrestled really tough today, so I was proud of the effort and the results.”
Maddux Borcherding-Johnson became a three-time district champ and will take a 29-0 record to the state meet, looking to improve on last year’s third-place medal. He won his championship match by fall in 1:53. Kolton Borcherding-Johnson, now 9-1, earned a hard-fought 4-2 victory in the finals.
Harper, Turner, Tripp and Tigner also reached the championship finals, placing second or third. Moret, Card and Kadan Borcherding-Johnson each lost in the semifinals, then responded with two wins to place third.
Card, who placed eighth at last year’s state meet, trailed 1-0 in his third-place match before earning an escape and the winning takedown with 55 seconds left. Kadan Borcherding-Johnson trailed 4-0 in his third-place match, rallied back to 4-3, then pinned his opponent in 4:16. Moret also won by fall to place third.
Norwalk’s fourth-place finishers were Asaiah Martinez at 113, Jake McKenzie (126), Brock Jensen (160) and Tyler Stanford (182). Stanford was an eyelash away from defeating an opponent who had pinned him twice earlier in the season, but ended up losing in sudden victory.
Class 3A first round and consolation matches at state will begin Wednesday at 6:00 p.m.