The young wrestling team knew it would take a monumental effort from each of the Loras grapplers at the Iowa Conference Tournament just to qualify someone for the NCAA Division III Tournament.

The conference tournament took place Monday and Tuesday at Lake, IA. The team finished sixth, which meant the Duhawks finished higher than every team that was not nationally ranked.

Year after year, the Iowa Conference has arguably the toughest wrestling conference in the nation. This year  was no exception, and Loras failed to advance far enough in the tournament to earn a berth in the national tourney..

“It’s just frusterating when you have a squad so young,” said Coach Randy Steward. “You don’t know who will show up mentally or who won’t. “One thing we just have to focus on is making an overall better wrestler.”

Individual placings were as follows: sophomore Pat Pfantz took sixth place at the 125-pound weight class, junior Brenden Murphy took sixth at the 133-pound weight class, first-year Matt Holmes finished fifth at the 141-pound weight class, sophomore Chris Gansen was eighth in the 149-pound weight class, sophomore Mitch Gansen took sixth in the 157-pound weight class, junior Tiegen Podliska took seventh in the 165-pound weight class, sophomore Matt Dickman finished eighth in the 174-pound weight class, first-year Josh Kirkland took eighth in the 184-pound weight class, junior Alex Grafft finished seventh in the 197-pound weight class and senior Jeremy Klein placed fifth at the 285-pound weight class.

Some young wrestlers who stood out from the crowd were Holmes, who took fifth as a first-year, and junior Sean Jarvis, who wrestled well enough in the Junior Varsity tournament on Monday to take second place in the 157-pound weight class.

“Sean Jarvis has shown a lot of improvement since October,” Steward said. “We are looking forward to seeing what he can do next year.”

Loras will graduate just two seniors, which means that the wrestlers have the potential to be just as good as these other conference teams if the younger members of the team stick with the program throughout their careers.

“One good thing about having a young team is that a lot of these kids will be back next year,” Steward continued. “This was a good experience for these young members, and we all learned from it.”