With the most important meets of the season just around the corner, Malcolm High School wrestling coach Matt Coufal is hopeful his wrestlers are putting themselves in the best possible position for post season success. A trip to the Boone Central Invite in Albion Jan. 30 provided the team one final tune up before this week’s conference meet.
“We didn’t wrestle our best at Albion,” Coufal said. “I’m not sure what was going on, but I hope we got it out of our system before this weekend.”
The Clippers finished seventh out of 16 in a field filled with quality teams.
“There’s some really good competition at this meet,” Coufal said. “Both David City schools are solid and Ashland-Greenwood is really good.”
Dustin Monroe turned in the day’s best performance for the Clippers. The 145-pounder finished second with his lone loss coming to one of Class C’s best in that weight class. Ashland-Greenwood’s Cody Lambert defeated Monroe 12-4 to improve his season record to 32-1. Monroe is now 39-5.
“Dustin has done a lot of good things this season,” Coufal said. “He’s worked hard and has really improved. He’s in a good position heading into our final meets.”
Earlier this month Austin Glause made the move from the 152-pound class to 160 and looks to remain there for the remainder of the season. Glause placed fourth at Boone Central with two tough losses, both to Augustine Reimers from Aquinas.
“Austin had a chance in both matches,” Coufal said. “He just wasn’t able to get things turned in his favor.”
Beau Dostal picked up the fourth place medal in the 170 pound class. Dostal’s two losses came to wrestlers with a combined 55-10 record.
“It wasn’t Beau’s best day,” Coufal said. “Both of the matches he lost started bad and just didn’t get any better. I’m confident we’ll see a better performance out of him at conference.”
Malcolm will host the East Central Nebraska Conference wrestling meet Friday afternoon and evening. Coufal feels his team has a good chance to win the conference title.
“Looking at the match ups, I think it probably comes down to Yutan and us,” he said. “If we go in healthy, I really like our chances.”
Wrestling begins Friday in Malcolm at 2 p.m.
