Five members of the Iowa wrestling program took home titles at the Duhawk Open on Feb. 4, according to a release.
The Hawkeyes sent 10 grapplers to Loras College in Dubuque for the tournament, and those wrestlers combined to go 31-8.
Matt Gurule won the 125-pound bracket by beating a trio of wrestlers from Luther College — Robert Patino (8-7), and Nick Scheffert (15-6), and Daniel Mendoza (4-3). The redshirt freshman from Grand Junction, Colo., won the same title last year.
Senior Tyler Clark picked up four bonus-point wins on the way to the 133-pound title. He beat Luther’s Evan Obert in a 13-3 major decision, Upper Iowa’s Matt Paulus in a 21-7 technical fall, and scored majors over Luther’s Brad Jones and Wiscsonsin’s Matt Kellier.
The 141-pound bracket featured four Hawkeyes, including winner Mark Ballweg and runner-up Josh Dziewa. Ballweg beat teammate Ethan Owens, 8-2, in the semis before pounding Dziewa, 12-2, in the finals. Redshirt freshman Charlie Joseph also wrestled but didn’t pick up a win.
Ballweg’s younger brother, Jacob Ballweg, won the 149-pound division with a pair of pins — in 1:02 over Cornell’s Austin Southards and in 4:24 over Dubuque sophomore Eric Powell — and a 7-2 decision over teammate Brody Grothus. Hawkeye freshman Jake Kadel lost to Grothus in the semifinals but won the losers’ bracket to take third place.
Freshman Kris Klapprodt won four matches to take home the 174-pound title. He picked up decisions over Luther sophomore Nick Jazdzewski (7-2) in the first round and over Loras freshman Joe Butler (11-7) in the finals; he scored majors over Dubuque’s Cody Ortmann (19-7) and Wisconsin-Platteville sophomore Quinn Sedlak (11-3) in the second and third rounds, respectively.
— by Seth Roberts
