The Iowa State Wrestling Club won the Great Plains Conference Championship in confusing fashion two weeks ago. Now, fresh off a conference title, it has high hopes as it prepares to send 10 wrestlers to compete in the national championships.

At the conference tournament in Fort Collins, Colorado, two weeks ago, the club team found itself in its own Oscar-like mix-up. 

At the end of the tournament, it was announced that the team had finished in third place. That announcement came as quite a shock to coach August Wesley.

“The fact that we had six medalists and three champions, I felt as though something was wrong with the math,” Wesley said. “I was a little apprehensive about the final score being correct. … I just knew Wayne State [initially announced the winners], they only had five place winners and no chance.”

The growing concerns caused tournament officials to come together and review the results. Someone noticed that a few teams received double points for weight classes in which they had two wrestlers competing. By rule, only one wrestler in each weight class can score points for their school.

By the time the scores were adjusted, the team was already back at the hotel getting ready to leave. Teammates were going over the day with one another, unwinding, and excited about how many people they did get through to nationals.

One of the 10 who is moving on to the national championship is junior Chase Reising. The scene when the team found out where it had placed was crazy. 

“We thought we were getting second place,” Reising said. “Doing our own math on the fly, we knew it wasn’t exact, but it looked like Air Force Academy had actually gotten first.

“Coach rounded everybody up, then pulled out the paper that said we got first and everybody went nuts. It was awesome.”

It wasn’t that long ago the club was barely functioning. There was no true coach, not many competitions and no real direction.

In two short years, the team has transformed into one of the best college club programs in the country. It has participated in 13 duals this year and spent the entire year ranked inside the top-five in the country, including a three-month stretch at No. 1.

Club president Tyler Kutz, also a qualifier for the national tournament, has helped bring the team from the depths all the way up to the powerhouse it is now. 

“It’s been crazy to see it go from just a small group of light-hearted guys at practice to a full team that we see at practice every day,” Kutz said. “It’s great to see a full team that wants to compete, wants to succeed, and just want to be a team that can go out and compete against other colleges and go to the national tournament and win matches.”

The number of club members has grown vastly over the past two years as well. It went from what Reising described as just a handful of guys who showed up to practice occasionally to 49 consistent members.

A lot of that growth can be attributed to the leadership that was taken on by the guys who wanted to see the club become a more serious endeavor.  

“After our freshman year, we had a lot of people step up and want to make this thing bigger,” Kutz said. “That really attracted a lot of guys who were thinking, ‘Well, this is a real program now. We want to wrestle too. We want to have college careers.’

“A lot of those guys are the same ones that are going to nationals this week. They wanted to come in and make it a real program. They saw that there were leaders who wanted the same thing and that’s when everything started to come together.”

One of those guys who saw the potential of the club is senior Clayton Visek. Visek, like many of the club members, wrestled throughout high school. He wasn’t recruited out of high school, and while he thought his wrestling days might have been over, he wasn’t ready to walk away just yet.

Visek joined the team as a junior last year and has since qualified for the national tournament two years in a row. After being sidelined with knee injuries for most of the year, Visek was able to come back and do just enough to qualify for nationals.

Visek is grateful to have the opportunity to come back from his injury and compete one last time. Certainly, Visek wants to go out on top, but he wants to do so while also being a good example for his younger teammates.

“It’s pretty hard to step away from my experience,” Visek said. “I’ve had a couple injuries where I haven’t been able to come back right away. I’ve been fortunate enough to where I’ve been able to come back and wrestle a little this year.

“I want to teach the underclassmen to not take it for granted, because it can be gone in the blink of an eye. I want them to enjoy it while it lasts. This is my last competition at the national level and the time has flown by. I’m ready and I’m excited.”

The 10 Iowa State Wrestling Club qualifiers will compete in the National Club Wrestling Association National Championships in Allen, Texas, starting Thursday and ending Saturday.