Miner places seventh in state debut

Spirit Lake Park's Doug Miner accomplished an impressive feat by advancing all the way to the medal stand in his first season at the varsity level, placing seventh in Class 2A in his freshman campaign after posting a 3-2 record this past week at the 2010 Iowa State Wrestling Championships in Des Moines.

"It was good to end the year on a positive note, having a place winner," said Spirit Lake Park coach Rick Vander Woude.

Miner, ranked fifth in the state, collected a couple of major decisions and a pin while his only two losses came at the hands of two of the top-4 ranked wrestlers at 103 pounds.

The SLP freshman came out with a bang, scoring four takedowns in a 10-2 major decision over Dillon Hansen of Ballard.

"We definitely started the tournament the way we needed to," said Vander Woude. "You know any kid from Ballard is going to have pretty good ability, so we definitely wanted to start on our offense as quick as we could and it turned out well on our end."

On Day 2, he lost a somewhat controversial 4-1 decision to fourth-ranked Mitch Funk of MFL-Mar-Mac after being called for stalling near the out-of-bounds line and giving up a questionable takedown.

"We were in every match, but that one came down to the first takedown," said Vander Woude. "We kind of got hipped over and got in a scramble situation. That first takedown is so big and is a huge momentum shifter in every match down there. Then we couldn't get any points. We had a tilt hooked up and couldn't get any back points, so it kind of came down to that first takedown."

Miner, however, bounced back with a 11-1 major decision over 10th-ranked Tanner Cowan of Centerville to guarantee himself a top-8 performance and a spot on the medal stand.

In the consolation round, Miner lost his second match of the state tournament to an upperclassman, dropping a 4-2 decision to second-ranked Pryce Creighton of Dallas Center-Grimes.

Miner pinned Patrick Rooney of Bondurant-Farrar in 3:59 in the medal round to place seventh overall. He closed out the season with a 31-6 record.

"First of all being able to wrestle back and placing is tough down there. It's nice to get into the placing rounds, then to finish off the way he did was big," Vander Woude said. "He actually had a close match with that kid last year, but that was in middle school. He ended up dominating the kid on his feet and getting the fall which is what you want to do to close out the year."

Vander Woude knew that Miner was disappointed about not reaching the championship round, but was proud of him for being mentally tough enough to come back from that and win a couple of matches in the consolation round.

"That's kind of where you see how much heart you have," he said. "He proved that it was important enough. He didn't reach his goal of making the finals and you don't have a lot of time to refocus mentally from that, but he was able to do it and that's a great sign mentally from a young kid like that."

Top-ranked Denver-Tripoli ran away with the 2A state championship with 148 points. Davenport Assumption was the runner-up with 109, followed by Ballard of Huxley in third with 103. Sergeant Bluff-Luton was the top northwest Iowa squad, coming away with a fifth place showing with 56 points. Spirit Lake Park came in 45th with eight points.