Emmetsburg, Ia (Northwest Iowa Now) – With the 2024-2025 Iowa High School Sports season winding down, we continue our series of the best teams from the past sports year in the KICD 9-County Area.

In the KICD 9-County Area, it is a pretty good bet that the Emmetsburg Boys Wrestling team will have a strong group just about every year. The E-Hawks brought back a few of their 2024 State Qualifiers but lost some big pieces in Gage Jorgensen and Jace Nelson-Brown.

In some early tournaments against strong competition, Emmetsburg too 4th out of 8 at Humboldt’s Je Fitch Invitational which also featured another strong 2A program in Atlantic who took 2nd behind the host Wildcats.

One of the biggest meats of the year for Emmetsburg is the Don Miller Invite in Fort Dodge. Some of the States top programs were in attendance like the host Fort Dodge, Centennial of Ankeny, Algona, Decorah, and the Champion that day, Humboldt. Emmetsburg took 9th out of 14 teams.

The E-Hawks struggled at their home dual Tournament, taking 2nd to last to start off January, but bounced back by winning all of their next 5 Twin Lakes conference Duals.

Emmetsburg’s Tournament team continued to struggle against high level competition, making the long trip to Tripoli in Northeast Iowa where they were 5th, also took 5th at the Twin Lakes Conference Tournament, 21st at OABCIG’s gigantic Her Igrens Invitational, and 10th at another highly competitive Tournament hosted by AC/GC.

The thing about wrestling a very competitive Tournament schedule is, it prepares you for the postseason better than any duals really can.

The E-Hawks hosted Class 1A District 3, which included a Lake Mills Juggernaut, Twin Lakes Conference upstart GTRA, and a strong West Lyon team. Emmetsburg was 4th and qualified 4 wrestlers for the State Meet.

Despite only qualifying 4, Emmetsburg still picked up 36 and a half points, with the Wirtzes scoring 29.5 of those. Justin Wirtz took 5th at 175 and Ryan Wirtz was 6th at 190.

Don Bosco of course dominated Class 1A for the State crown, clearing 2nd place Alburnett by 81.5 points. Wilton was 3rd, well behind that at 109. Even Osage, who dropped from Class 2A to 1A, was 4th, 125 points behind the State Champ Dons.

Emmetsburg would take 22nd as a team, tying with West Hancock at 36.5 points.