The last opportunity for you to see the Adel-Desoto-Minburn Tigers wrestling team compete in Adel this calendar year was yesterday evening. The Tigers welcomed grapplers from North Polk and Raccoon River Conference member Ballard to ADM High School Thursday night for the first competition of the season.

ADM opened their newest campaign wrestling North Polk. The Tigers recorded six pins, two forfeits, and a technical fall to beat the Comets, 53-28. Registering pins for ADM was Bryce Holm (120; 1:03), Hogan Hopewell (138; 2:46), Nolan Harsh (152; 5:05), Brodrick Schmidt (160; 5:59), Charles Craigmile (182; 0:40), and Trevor Flettre (195; 0;36). Andrew Flora (113) was ADM’s only technical fall winner in the dual, winning the match 17-2 over Ryan Davidson in 4:52. The victory was the first varsity dual victory for Chris Hatchitt, the district’s longtime middle school coach. Hatchitt was pleased with the way his squad started the evening. “North Polk wrestled well, and we had a little fire under us.” Hatchitt said, “There are areas we can improve on, most definitely. I took some notes, and we are going to work on it starting (today) as we prepare for this weekend, but I think we started out on a good note.”

ADM’s final match of the night was against conference member Ballard, ranked by IA Wrestle and the Predicament as the No. 2 rated Class 2A dual team. The Tigers scored on a pair of falls as Ballard ran away with a 59-12 victory. ADM opened the dual with pinfall victory for Cole Williamson (106; 0:51) and Andrew Flora (113; 1:19). Ballard responded by winning the next 12 matches, including four pins, three forfeits, three decisions, and two major decisions. ADM’s dual record after opening night sits at 1-1. The Tigers will compete this weekend in DCG Mustang Invitational Saturday in Grimes.