More news from out west as Flowrestling was able to sit down with Bettendorf’s Fredy Stroker, who happens to be a top ten pound-for-pound recruit in the upcoming year. Stroker is expected to draw offers from just about every major program in Division I and then some.
Stroker was interviewed by Christian Pyles talking about those college choices and Pyles point blank asks Fredy if he has a top five. What was Fredy’s response? A pretty generic, not going to give anything away type response. He mentioned he was looking into some Big Ten schools, Arizona State (which is now run by the former U.S. National freestyle coach), and some Ivy league schools. In short, just about every major school is still in play. While Fredy is keeping his future plans tightly under wraps, he did mention that he is considering announcing before he takes an official visit (this is not uncommon) to any school. The recruitment period for the upcoming year gets under way this week (July 1st in fact) so look for Fredy to start getting attention on Tuesday requesting his services.
In the ‘Ten minutes with Metcalf’, Pyles was able to ask Brent about the current events that have been taking place at the team camp. Metcalf tells us that he has been working with some of the younger guys, and that is good, because the young wrestlers want to do everything they can to come out and try and take down a World Team Member, and because of the attitude, it keeps him sharp and he knows he always has to be ready to go. About halfway through Metcalf addresses what some Hawkeye fans wants to know, what has changed from when Iowa was winning titles (when Metcalf was in college) to where Iowa is now. Metcalf says that the athletes need to put it on themselves to be better and to help get Iowa back to where they are used to being. I don’t think he was calling out individuals in particular, just that we need more guys with a Brent Metcalf or Tony Ramos type mentality. Where they will go out and do whatever it takes to win.
- Iowa was in Oklahoma competing in the Junior Duals. On Thursday Iowa’s Greco-Roman team was able to take home 8th place. On Friday and Saturday Iowa had two freestyle teams competing, with a couple of Iowa recruits on the Blue team. It was that Blue team that was the most successful weekend, after finishing second in their pool behind Team Illinois. Their success in pool action qualified them for the Gold/Silver pool (the “finals”) where they went 1-3 in that pool to finish 6th place in the tournament. Iowa recruit Logan Ryan went 4-3 in freestyle with one of his wins over Florida’s Paul Lugo (#7 at 152), whom beat Ryan in Greco earlier in the week. Two of Ryan’s losses were to Isaiah White, who is currently ranked #3 at 138 pound by Flowrestling. White is out of the same high school as current Hawkeye Sammy Brooks, and Gopher brothers Nick and Chris Dardanes. Iowa recruit Mitch Bowman was able to notch a couple victories over ranked foes, including #9 and 17 at 182 Dontae McGee (FL) and Nathan Traxler (IL).
- Iowa’s Red team finished 5th in their pool, which qualified them for the Red/Blue Pool. If the top eight teams wrestle in the Gold/Silver, the next eight wrestle in the Bronze/Copper, the third set wrestles in the Red/Blue pool. Iowa was able to go 4-0 in the Red/Blue pool to finish first. Twin brothers Bryce and Drew West, whom we interviewed earlier month, combined to go undefeated on the weekend at 113.
- Other performances from the Junior duals : Cash Wilcke (#6 182 undecided recruit) went 3-2. Bryce Steiert (#19 at 145) was 6-1, and he was wrestling up at 160. Jake Marnin (#2 HWT) was undefeated 7-0. Also, Alex Meyer’s (Iowa 174/184 wrestler) brother Aaron was 4-3.
- We mentioned last week that Iowa’s Megan Black would be competing at the Junior Pan Ams in Canada. This past weekend Black went 2-0 defeating Amber Lynn Maschke of Canada and Martha Vanessa Olivares of Peru to claim the gold at 55 KG.