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Iowa Wrestling - Soldier Salute Day One Recap

by:Tanner Lafever•12/30/24•

TannerLafever

Kale Petersen
Kale Petersen gestures to the Hawkeye faithful after his move of the day earned him a spot in the Soldier Salute semifinals. (Photo Credit: Iowa Wrestling Twitter account)

Half-a-hundred athletes from the two University of Iowa wrestling programs took the mat Sunday at the 2024 Soldier Salute.

You read that correctly. An even 50 Hawkeyes competed – either attached or unattached – across two sessions totaling roughly eight hours of wrestling at Xtream Arena in Coralville.

All those matches later (and there were a lot of them), a total of 35 will continue into Day Two – 15 men and 20 women.

So yeah, it was a pretty good day if you’re a fan of the team wearing Black & Gold.

While each of the 10 men’s brackets were wrestled in traditional tournament championship fashion (double elimination, wrestlebacks, etc.), most of the women’s matches on Sunday were as part of a ‘pool play’ format.

In those instances – sans 124 and 138 pounds – the top 2-3 finishers in each pool advanced to Monday’s quarterfinals.

That distinction is why the current team scores appear so lopsided when comparing the respective men’s/women’s divisions:

As such, the #2 Hawkeye men hold a 42-point advantage over second-place, #7 Minnesota (111-69). Meanwhile, the #1 Hawkeye women lead (NAIA) #1 Life University by a margin of 45-43 heading into Monday.

Due to the absurd number of Iowa wrestlers in action, not to mention for the sake of my (and your) sanity, I’m going to attempt to somewhat restrain myself in this Day One recap.

Will I achieve that goal? Who knows.

Let’s just try to stick to the highlights and we’ll see what happens.

Men’s early round takeaways

Little in the way of surprise and/or note emerged from the first few rounds of action on the men’s side.

The talent gap between the top and bottom of this tournament is wide enough that most of the early wins and losses are expected based on how it reads on paper. Each also tends to be fairly lopsided.

That was the case on Sunday as all of Tom Brands’ heavy hitters rolled into the quarterfinals. Every starter and/or conceivable starter did so exclusively via bonus points, except one.

At 149 pounds, 2024 NCAA qualifier Caleb Rathjen had to scrap for a late takedown to break a tie versus Iowa State freshman Kane Naaktgeboren. Beyond that, let’s just say the resistance was ‘minimal.’

In my opinion, there were only really two other results of note.

One was freshman Kael Voinovich dropping a tight 5-4 decision at 149 pounds to Wyoming’s #22 Gabe Willochell.

The 2024 Iowa high school state champ (City High) was pushing hard for the winning takedown but couldn’t quite make it happen. He continues to impress me as we head into the third month of the 2024-25 season.

And the other was Kale Petersen competing at 133 pounds.

The redshirt freshman had been at 125 so far this season. Was this a signal that perhaps the battle for that starting spot with Joey Cruz is now over? I wouldn’t go that far just yet, but it’s something to monitor going forward.

Men’s (quality) quarterfinals

14/28 Hawkeye entries advanced as far as the quarterfinal round on Sunday evening. 10 of them would go another step further to reach Monday’s semis.

A few had ‘close,’ if decisive wins over unranked opponents – namely #4 Drake Ayala (6-2 at 133) and #12 Ben Kueter (5-1 at 285). Meanwhile, six of Iowa’s eight other quarterfinal victories came via absolute thrashings.

The only two matches to not fit either description were the following:

  • At 125 pounds, #28 Joey Cruz earned a hard-fought 4-2 win thanks to a decisive takedown in its latter stages.
  • At 133, the aforementioned Kale Petersen rallied from a 7-0 deficit to win via third-period fall. Petersen fell behind early on a feet-to-back toss that nearly wound up in a pin. Then, after closing the gap to 9-6 he hit this to secure the wild come-from-behind victory:

As you can imagine that match-winning sequence elicited one of the louder reactions of the day from the sizeable (pro-Hawkeye) crowd in attendance at Xtream Arena.

Iowa also had chances for big upset wins against top-seven-ranked opponents at both 141 and 149 pounds. However, neither senior Cullan Schriever (141) nor freshman Miguel Estrada (149) could convert late scoring opportunities.

And the final Session II result that I’ll mention once again involves freshman Kael Voinovich – who defeated his teammate Estrada 4-1 in sudden victory in the consolation round.

The match itself was of the typically cagey variety between two teammates, but I mention it anyway because I’m quite high on the prospects of both young Hawkeye 149-pounders.

Women’s Sunday storylines

I imagine that one of the better feelings as a coach is when your stars perform like stars.

I didn’t ask Iowa women’s head coach Clarissa Chun that question Sunday, but it sure would’ve applied to her team’s latest showing.

Of the 22 Hawkeye women to take the mat, a whopping nine possess one (or more) of the following credentials

  • #1 national ranking
  • Returning national finalist
  • Returning national champion
  • Senior World Championships medalist
  • Olympic medalist

All told, eight of those nine athletes finished Day 1 of the Soldier Salute with a combined 21-0 record, winning 20/21 matches via bonus points while allowing zero total points in the process.

Only Sterling Dias, a returning national finalist, broke up the equivalent of a ‘perfect game.’ – and her lone ‘transgression’ was hardly unforgivable.

Dias, in her first live action since suffering a shoulder injury nearly two months ago on opening weekend, dropped a narrow 2-1 decision to NAIA’s second-ranked Katherine Hernandez (Life University).

She won her two other matches via fall in 2:06 and 1:31 respectively.

(Like I said, hardly a crime against humanity by the redshirt sophomore given the entire context.)

The only Hawkeye women eliminated from placing on Day 1 were 138-pounders Lilly Luft and Danni Swihart.

Luft – a returning NCWCC All-American – was making her season debut as she returns from injury of her own.

She picked up an opening 5-2 victory over Canadian Michaela Ranking (Brock University) to get her tournament started, followed by a competitive 6-2 quarterfinal loss to NAIA #3 Samantha Barragan (Texas Wesleyan).

An injury default in the consolations ended her weekend – presumably for precautionary reasons.

Women’s highlights

As a team, the Iowa women went a combined 46-11 on Sunday with 37 of those victories (80.4 percent) including bonus points.

Oh, and a pair of those losses (and wins) were from two all-Hawkeye bouts.

Coach Chun’s squad earned 14 ranked wins versus NCAA/NAIA/JUCO competition, as well as a pair of victories over blue-chip high schoolers – several of whom are entered into this weekend’s tournament.

If forced to pick a few standout performances, I’d start with Emily Frost’s last-second victory at 131 pounds.

Trailing 8-4 in the waning moments, Frost hit one of her patented headlocks, taking Madilyn Peach feet-to-back just before time expired for the 8-8 criteria lead.

A failed challenge tacked on an additional point to officially give Frost the 9-8 win.

A close second to Frost would be fellow sophomore Cali Leng’s own come-from-behind win, hers at 124.

Down by as much as 7-1 to NAIA’s eighth-ranked Anna Krejsa (Life), Leng stormed back in the second period to ultimately come away with the 14-11 win.

The result not only earned Leng a spot in the semifinals, but merely continued an underrated season to date from the Ohio native. Two more wins on Sunday upped her record to 24-7 over the past two months.

What to watch for (men’s edition)

Fast-forwarding to Day 2, the competition at Xtream Arena should only ramp up with the men’s semifinals set and the women having winnowed each weight class down to the cream of the crop.

A Cy-Hawk battle awaits at 125, as #28 Joey Cruz faces three-time NCAA qualifier Kysen Terukina, and at 133 we’re a win away (each) from an all-Iowa final between #4 Drake Ayala and Kale Petersen.

At 149, #4 Kyle Parco looks to continue his tear through the bracket when he faces #22 Gabe Willochell. Win that, and a juicy final against North Carolina’s #6 Lachlan McNeil could be on tap.

Similarly, Patrick Kennedy will have his own Tar Heel test at 174, where #19 Josh Ogunsanya awaits.

Bumping up another weight class, #6 Gabe Arnold and freshman phenom Angelo Ferrari sit in opposite semifinals.

Were they both to advance, I’m still not convinced we’d see the two square off in the finals (for a variety of reasons). That said, I’d sure love to know if my hunch is right or not!

And finally, 197 pounds could have the match of the entire men’s tournament (pending Arnold/Ferrari). If both #2 Stephan Buchanan and Minnesota’s #5 Isaiah Salazar can best a pair of supremely talented freshmen – Oklahoma State’s Cody Merrill and Mizzou’s Aeoden Sinclair – in their semis, we’d be in store for a true-blue top five showdown on Monday night.

(Here’s hoping it happens.)

What to watch for (women’s edition)

It’s only now that I’m realizing I’ve once again gone way longer than I intended (and arguably should have) with this ‘restrained’ recap (LOL).

And given that I sustained my energy over roughly 12.5 hours at the arena today on a hot pretzel, five or six Jolly Ranchers and a Sprite, I’m worried there might not be any Day Two coverage at all if I don’t wrap this thing up.

If you know me and my coverage, you know this is no slight toward the Iowa women’s program whatsoever. It’s really just an admission that I could crash and burn at any given moment here – perhaps forever.

That said, Day Two of the women’s portion of the Soldier Salute promises to be absolutely incredible. Iowa’s shining stars will be raring to go yet again, and if you refer back to my tournament preview, you’ll see that a wealth of talented opposition awaits them as the stakes grow with each proceeding match.

I for one, cannot wait to watch every single second of it all.

Short time

OK, I really mean it this time.

I’m signing off for the night.

(Or at least I’m trying to.)

Thanks to everyone for following along on Day One of the 2024 Soldier Salute. I hope you’ll all be back tomorrow as we wrap things up with 20 new individual champions plus a pair of team title trophies to boot.

A reminder on Monday’s schedule (all times Central):

Session 3:

  • 11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Session 4:

  • 5:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

All action will be streaming live on B1G+ (subscription required), with brackets/mat assignments/etc. available at THIS LINK.

You can also follow me all day long on my social media feed for extensive coverage of all the biggest matches/moments.

Thanks again, and goodnight!

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