(Photo – Nate Castillo/IAWrestle)
The Clarion-Goldfield-Dows Cowboys wrestling team returned to action on Saturday morning, as they made the trip to Eastern Iowa to compete at the 2025 Iowa High School State Wrestling Dual Championships at XTreme Arena in Coralville. The Cowboys entered as the #6 seed in Class 2A.
CGD opened the tournament by facing 3rd-seeded Sergeant Bluff-Luton out of the Missouri Rivers Conference, as the Cowboys and Warriors split the first 4 matches, with Charlie Campbell (190) winning a major decision and JT Kelso (285) winning by pin. Beginning with Angel Cortes at 113, the Cowboys reeled off 4 straight wins with a Cortes pin, a Linden Phetxoumphone pin, a Ryan Hartwig tech fall and an Adrian Phetxoumphone decision. SB-L would get 3 straight wins from 138 to 150, but Caleb Seaba would secure a tech fall at 157 to secure the match at 35-32 and send the Cowboys to the semifinals.
In the semifinals, CGD would clash with perennial power West Delaware out of the WaMaC, as the Hawks opened with a win at 215, but CGD would reel off 5 straight wins from 285 to 126 with 3 pins, a major decision and a decision. West Delaware would flip the script from there, winning 7 of the last 8 matches to secure a 38-31 win and send the Cowboys to the 3rd place match
The 3rd place match saw the Cowboys meet up with another WaMaC school in the Williamsburg Raiders, as CGD won 5 of the first 6 matches with a JT Kelso pin at 285, Angel Cortes pin at 113, Linden Phetxoumphone tech fall at 120, Adrian Phetxoumphone at 126 and a Ryan Hartwig pin at 132. The Raiders and Cowboys would go back and forth on results from there, with Colin Sesker winning by tech fall at 144, Caleb Seaba winning by fall at 157 and Charlie Campbell mathematically clinching the match with a tech fall at 175. CGD would win the dual by a score of 42-31 to secure 3rd place in the match.
The North Central Conference would secure 2 of the top 3 spots in the tournament, as Algona won their first-ever dual team title by defeating West Delaware in the final.