The Battle of Waterloo wrestling tournament turned out to be just as it’s name implied…a battle. The 32 team wrestling tournament that started Friday night and finished up on Saturday was exciting from beginning to end.

The ADM Tigers put up valiant effort in a very tough Bracket C (also known as the Bob Buzzard Bracket) which yielded the second place tournament finisher in New Hampton. ADM battled tough in Bracket C but a close 35-33 early loss to Independence took them out of championship contention. The Tigers bounced back from the loss to win the next to matches against Waterloo East (57-23) and Lake Mills (47-30) to earn them 5th place in Bracket C.

In pool play the Tigers came out of pool 5 with a third place finish. The Tigers lost to Dener-Tripoli and Linn-Mar but took the third place spot by beating Mason City 45-27.

The overall win-loss results were not indicative of just how well ADM performed. Despite the three losses, all of which were close, the Tigers ended the tournament 5th overall in total team points (251) and 4th overall in most pins/technical falls in the least amount of time.

Individually the Tigers had four wrestlers with unblemished records in the tournament. Returning state qualifiers Zach Johnston (160 lbs) and Nathan Heath (285 lbs) along with Hunter Gibson (220 lbs) and Andrew Flora (106 lbs) went 6-0 in the tournament.

West Des Moines Valley took first in the tournament, New Hampton earned second place overall, and Don Bosco rounded out the top three with a third place finish.

Next on the docket for the Tiger wrestling team, ADM will travel to Dallas Center-Grimes to take on the Mustangs starting at 6:30 pm on January 7th.