By Tanner Mauk & Matt Smith

The AHS Rollin Dyer Wrestling Tournament has experienced a change in its format. The past few years it had been a dual tournament, with entire teams competing against each other and the winning team advancing to the next round, but with no individual awards given. The tournament traditionally took place before winter break.

This year, the Rollin Dyer was an individual tournament. All of the wrestlers competed for the individual title of Rollin Dyer Invitational Champion on Saturday, Jan. 11.

In years past, the AHS team headed into the week before Christmas break knowing what to expect because of the tradition of the week. Usually there was practice all week and maybe a dual or two, followed by the Rollin Dyer tournament, where the varsity and the JV both suited up to wrestle in the same bracket, hoping to meet their teammates in the finals. The morning after the tournament, wrestlers knew to plan on having a five-mile run and then working the Little Trojan wrestling tournament. After this long day, wrestlers headed into a week off for Christmas.

The change in tournament structure moved the event to the second weekend in January, where the Trojans wrestled very well. Out of 12 Atlantic-CAM Wrestlers, five of them achieved gold: seniors Jacob Johnson, Darrien Schwenke, Dillon Cox and Tyler Christensen along with sophomore Keegan Hosfelt. Johnson also received the Most Valuable Wrestler award for winning some close matches and pulling out an upset over a top-ten ranked wrestler in the state.

The other seven wrestlers worked up enough points to put Atlantic at the top of the scoreboard with a first place team finish, only by a single point. The 126 pound champion Schwenke said that the 1 point difference that put Atlantic above Glenwood was that, “ We wrestled pretty good on Saturday… we won matches that we need to… everyone in the finals won their matches and everyone on the backside fought hard [to get more team points].” Freshman Zac Stork, who got 4th on Saturday said, “Atlantic wrestlers finished their matches and got pins, not settling for 8-10 point victories.”
The Atlantic wrestlers will be back in action on Saturday 18 in ADM where they hope to gain a second tournament title of the year.