March 5, 2005

NORTHFIELD, MINN. . . . Four Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (IIAC) wrestlers won individual national titles at the 2005 NCAA Wrestling Championships at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn. on Saturday. Along with four individual champions, the IIAC had 19 wrestlers earn All-American honors (top-8 finish) and had three schools finish in the top-10.

Luther and Wartburg both had two individual Champions – Matt Pyle (149-pounds) and Garrett South (165-pounds) of Luther, and Dustin Hinschberger (141-pounds) and Akeem Carter (197-pounds) of Wartburg. Hinschberger and Carter both defended their national titles from last year while South and Pyle improved on their second and third-place national finishes respectively from 2004.

The 19 Iowa Conference All-Americans include the four individual champions, three runners-up, three third-place, three fourth-place, two fifth-place, three sixth-place and one seventh-place finishers. Five of the place matches featured Iowa Conference wrestlers competing against one another including the Championship match at 149-pounds where #2-seeded Pyle upset #1 Clint Manny of Simpson (8-1) as he did in the finals of the IIAC Championship.

Three third-place matches were contested between two IIAC wrestlers. At 125-pounds, in a rematch of the Conference Championship match between Wartburg’s Justin McClintock and Loras’ Terry Morgan, the seventh-seeded Morgan upset the fourth-seeded McClintock (3-1 in sudden victory) as he did at the Conference meet. At 133-pounds, #3 Tyler Hubbard of Wartburg won by decision over #8 Mike Lopez of Luther (5-3). At 141-pounds, #3 Jeff Patzke of Luther won by decision over unseeded Dustin Brewer of Simpson (8-6).

The fifth-place match at 184-pounds was also a rematch of the Iowa Conference Championship match. As he did at the Conference meet, #4 Scott Kauffman of Wartburg won by decision over #6 Danny Adams of Luther (7-5).

Wartburg finished second in the team race with 104.5 points, trailing National Champion Augsburg which totaled 162 points. Luther finished third with 100 points and Simpson finished sixth with 38.5 points. Wartburg’s runner-up finish is its 11th top-two finish in the last 13 years including four straight. Luther matched its top national finish with its second straight third-place finish. Loras finished tied for 24th with 12 points, Buena Vista finished 32nd with nine points and Coe finished 33rd with 8.5 points.

Complete Championship results can be found here.

A complete list of 2005 Iowa Conference wrestling All-Americans is here.

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