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New coach wants wrestlers best at basics
by Gregory R. Norfleet · Sports · November 30, 2017


The new wrestling season starts with a new coach and somewhat larger team – and a focus on the basics.


First-year Head Coach Cody Krumwiede comes to West Branch High School wrestling since a year before kindergarten, and with experience at the college level. In high school, he wrestled for Waverly-Shell Rock, which he considers a strong wrestling school.

“We were very good,” he said. “We were seven for eight for state championships (and) we’re Top 40 every year in the nation.”

Though only 25 years old, he’s been wrestling “longer than they’ve been alive,” he said, gesturing at the wrestlers warming up in what once was the high school’s Iron Loft and wrestling room, and is now an expanded wrestling room.

This is his first year as a head coach, but Krumwiede helped a variety of club and school teams before, including wrestlers at University of Northern Iowa.

“So I’ve been around coaching for a bit, but I’ve just never been in the head coaching positions,” he said.

For the Panthers, Krumwiede wrestled first as a heavyweight recruit, but did not wrestle in competition as much as he hoped.

“I was one of those unlucky people who got injured all the time,” he said. “I ended up losing too much muscle and went down to 197 (pounds).”

The jump from high school to college wrestling, he said, showed him that less is more.

“Any coach in the country will tell you basics win,” Krumwiede said. “In college, you just see that. If you stick to the basics and actually do what you’re supposed to, get head positions, circle, keep the pressure on the other dude – that wins matches.”

That may surprise some high school students, he said.

“All these high schoolers are just like, ‘Well, how do I pin the guy quick?’” the coach said. “You don’t have to pin the guy quick. You’ve just got to out-wrestle him.”

The 2017-18 team includes returning wrestlers sophomores John Yates and Zach Wright, junior Tyler Siemen, and senior Jacob Graves.

Siemen brings the most experience and the highest win percentage. He wrestled mostly in the 106-pound weight class in 2016-17 and finished with a 17-11 record. He is followed by Wright who wrestled mostly at 138 pounds and beats just over half of his competition, earning a 22-20 record.

Graves wrestled in the 145 range during his junior year and earned a 16-23 record. Yates as a freshman started at 152 mostly due to his height and earned an 8-24 record.

Newcomers include freshmen Dominic Culver, Joe Seydel, Dylan Butler and Morgan Hartz; junior Drake Bloem and seniors Jacob Barnhart and Trevor Thein.

Krumwiede said most of the new wrestlers have wrestled before.

“We’ve got a lot of new guys this year and second-year wrestlers, so we’re going to see what we can morph these guys into. We’ve got to get into the swing of things a little bit,” he said.

One player of particular interest is Barnhart, an offensive lineman on the Bears football team currently being recruited by colleges up to Division I. Barnhart is 6-5 and at the beginning of the football season weighed in at 300 pounds.

Yes, he will wrestle heavyweight, or 285 pounds, the upper limit for the heaviest class.

“He’s already down there just from working out,” the coach said of Barnhart’s weight. “Wrestling is a lot more of all-body conditioning workout, so it works the body in ways they’re not used to, so when he came in this year, he was like, ‘I feel really out of shape. I thought I’d be in shape from football.’ It’s a different beast, buddy.”

Krumwiede said Barnhart is “doing really well” in the first few days of practice. The team started practicing Nov. 20.

“One good thing I’ve noticed with him pretty early is he has really good hips,” the coach said. “In wrestling, that’s huge, to actually keep the pressure on guys. He’s got hips like he’s been wrestling for three or four years.”

Krumwiede said Barnhart, as well as other wrestlers, needs to work on their “go-to shot.”

“A lot of new guys, they just need one shot just so they have one offensive to go to,” he said. “That’s the thing with some of these guys: We just got to develop one basic, one simple go-to thing they can get (to work).”

Barnhart and Bloem will spar in practice, and Krumwiede and Assistant Coach Jason Feuerbach will do some of that as well, he said.

“It’s always good to go with a more-experienced guy,” he said. “Wrestling is one of those sports where you take your lumps a little bit but it makes you better, actually. You go with someone else and they’re sharpening you to make you better. So, it’s always good to go with better guys.”

Assistant Coach Will Kober will return to help the team as well.

“He’s a great help, too,” Krumwiede said.

The coach said that of the 14 weight classes, West Branch can probably fill about nine or 10 with its 11 wrestlers, so not too much overlap.

“It’s going to depend on how our guys shake out,” he said. “I’m not a big believer in kids cutting a ton of weight, so I’m allowing them for the most part to choose their weight classes. So, there’s going to be some wrestle-offs and if you lose the wrestle-offs, you’re going to have to think about going into another weight class. That’s just the way it’s going to work out.”

Teaching high school social studies puts him into contact with students, so he continues to recruit, he said.

The guys out so far, even with only a couple days in the practice room, showed him a lot.

“I’m pretty impressed,” he said. “We’re picking up things pretty quickly. Our old guys have got the basics down pretty well but we’ve just got to develop what they already have. The new guys are picking up pretty quickly (from the more experienced players) who are really invested in helping them get better and improve.”

He considers his coaching practices “pretty standard” and the wrestlers have not commented on many big changes from when Chris Paulus led the team.

“I’m a little fresh out of college,” Krumwiede said. “And I know some of the things college coaches are really pushing right now and I may push some of those things over some of the things they’ve been taught.”

While some coaches want wrestlers to pin quickly and others want them to build conditioning and experience by staying on the mat longer, Krumwiede said that, for him, he looks at the quality of the wrestlers.

“That completely depends on your skill level,” he said. “Every coach … that’s a very unique thing. That’s going to depend a lot on what you have. Let’s say our best wrestler goes against a guy with a single win and it’s January (near the end of the season) you might tell them just to build up the conditioning a little bit. For most matches, you’re going to just tell the guy to wrestle his match.”

Krumwiede said he remembers high school coaches who would tell him to successfully complete a couple of specific moves before taking his opponent down, but not when wrestling another ranked wrestler.

The toughest opponents in terms of returning wrestlers? Lisbon – a team expected to be a big threat at sectionals in February. Lisbon happens to be hosting that Feb. 3 event.

“(But) you wrestle for yourself, not your competition,” Krumwiede said. “And that’s what I tell the guys. You don’t worry about who you have. You just wrestle your best every match. And that’s what we’re concerned about.”

He sees Lisbon as the “one tough team” at sectionals.

“There are no other high-tier teams” in the area like the Lions, he said, that have the best chance to block others from reaching state. “You never know for sure (about other teams).”

The new coach encourages the fans to come out and support the team.

“We’d love to get as many fans as possible out this year to support us,” he said.

The team opens the season 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 30, at Cascade with Durant and West Liberty also competing in the quad.