Where Iowa high school boys and girls wrestlers will compete in college
It feels like everyone these days has a tie to the state of Iowa.
Whether it's Jason Momoa of Norwalk, Elijah Wood of Cedar Rapids or Ashton Kutcher coming home to watch University of Iowa wrestling duals, it feels like everyone has a connection to this state one way or another.
That last example in particular rings home, as Iowans love their wrestling. It should come as little surprise that with a state that loves wrestling as much as Iowa does, we have some pretty good wrestlers being produced at the amateur level.
It was apparent in this year's collegiate postseason that the state of Iowa is producing elite talent, not only in the Iowa programs with guys like Iowa's Drake Ayala (Fort Dodge) making the 125-pound finals of the NCAA Championships or Evan Frost (moved to West Des Moines) of Iowa State becoming an All-American, but in programs outside the state as well.
Take South Dakota State's Tanner Sloan and Cade DeVos, both fifth-place finishers and All-Americans this season for the Jackrabbits. Both of them are from the state of Iowa, with DeVos coming from Southeast Polk and Sloan born and raised in Alburnett.
It's not just guys like them or Minnesota's Michael Blockhus, who went to New Hampton High School here in Iowa, in neighboring states making impacts either. They're even going to places like Stanford in the case of Hunter Garvin, who went to Iowa City West. Oregon State's Boone McDermott, formerly an Iowa Central Community College wrestler, attended Dubuque Wahlert.
The state of Iowa had 13 NCAA qualifiers for the 2024 NCAA Championships according to Flowrestling, and 14 if you include Frost, who attended Dowling Catholic. At the NCWWCs, the women's college wrestling championship, Iowa was well-represented by schools like Wartburg College, Simpson College and the University of Dubuque. Iowa's Felicity Taylor, a South Winneshiek alum, won a title at 116 pounds for the third time of her career.
"Iowa is hard-nosed wrestling," Sloan said. "That's something you can take and mold into a college athlete."
In a state with so many great collegiate wrestlers dating back to Dan Gable, Tom and Terry Brands, and Joe Gibbons to name a few, it comes as little shock that the lineage carries on today with so many.
With that being said, who could be next?
We've compiled every known wrestling commit and signees from the state of Iowa into one place for the class of 2024, giving us a glimpse of who could be the next big thing to make a splash on the college wrestling scene. It also gives an idea of some of the trends in recruiting.
Class of 2024
Athletes are listed in alphabetical order by last name, commits have been compiled from personal interviews, social media commitment posts and Intermat's college commitment database.
Men's Division I commits
Dru Ayala (Fort Dodge) - University of Iowa
Gabe Carver (Urbandale) - Iowa State University
Matthew Beem (Glenwood) - Campbell University
Braeden Blackorby (Johnston) - University of Virginia
Koufax Christensen (Waukee Northwest) - University of Oklahoma
Carter Freeman (Waukee Northwest) - University of Northern Iowa
Tyler Harper (Norwalk) - University of Arkansas at Little Rock
Daniel Herrera (Ames) - Iowa State University
Owen Helgeson (Johnston) - Iowa State University
John King (Waukee Northwest) - Duke University
Anders Kittelson (Osage) - Air Force Academy
Grant Kress (Linn-Mar) - South Dakota State University
Max Magayna (Waterloo East) - North Dakota State University
Kane Naaktgeboren (Linn-Mar) - Iowa State University
Damarion Ross (Fort Dodge) - Northern Illinois University
Cael Seaton (Iowa City High) - South Dakota State University
Brent Slade (Southeast Polk) - Campbell University
Kellen Smith (West Hancock) - Army West Point
Tucker Stangel (Osage) - Iowa State
Jackson Van Kley (Pella) - Army West Point
Kael Voinovich (Iowa City High) - University of Iowa
Here, we've listed just the known Division I commits, while we'll discuss a few of the Division II, III and NAIA school commits below.
As you can see, a handful of wrestlers are staying in Iowa. Ayala and Voinovich (originally an Ohio native, wrestled in Oklahoma most of high school) are following their brothers Drake and Victor to Iowa City. With the exception of those two, the rest of Iowa's recruiting class is made up of out-of state athletes, with five out-of-state recruits in total.
You can read more about them in our way-too-early look of the Hawkeyes' 2024-25 season on hawkcentral.com.
That statistic is in stark comparison to years past. Iowa's 2023 recruiting class, six commits in total, had five with ties to the state of Iowa. Gabe Arnold was from Georgia, but wrestled his last high school season at Iowa City High like Voinovich. What does that mean? Probably not a whole lot considering about half of Iowa's roster from this season is from Iowa (20 of 41), but it is an interesting trend to follow as the only two Hawkeye commits for 2025 are also from out-of-state.
Iowa State has a mix of both, with four of its eight commits from the state of Iowa. It's five if you count Herrera, a heavyweight state champion with Ames who moved from California last summer. As a comparison, 14 of Iowa State's 41 roster members were from Iowa, 16 if you count the Frost twins. Statistically speaking, this is a higher percentage of Iowa recruits than the norm as of late at Iowa State.
As previously mentioned, you can see that South Dakota State has dipped its toe back into the Iowa pool. On the 2023-24 roster, SDSU had six Iowans, more than 17% of its roster from the state. They'll be adding another pair in Seaton and Kress for next year.
The pipeline is strong behind assistant coach Cody Caldwell. Caldwell wrestled at Waverly-Shell Rock and Northern Iowa, then was an assistant at Grand View University before going to South Dakota State. Head coach Damion Hahn credits him for much of this connection.
"Iowa has been really good to us," Hahn said. "The kids coming out of there are tough. Iowa in particular is a wrestling state in my mind. They're passionate about the sport and they get into it at a younger age. Some of the level of coaching and competition is really top-notch."
Iowa also has a good number of wrestlers headed to the service academies this year with Smith and Van Kley heading to West Point and Kittelson going to Air Force. It's a huge year for the service academies, with all three of Army, Navy and Air Force having All-Americans on the podium in 2024. The last time that happened was 2003.
Osage's Kittelson is fresh off a state title and will head to Air Force, which has produced some good wrestlers over the years such as Wyatt Hendrickson, a pinning machine at heavyweight.
"I get to go out and serve my country, do something for all these people to ensure they can keep their freedoms while pursuing the sport I love and also get one of the top educations in the world," Kittelson said.
It's also appropriate that two wrestlers, Slade and Beem, are headed to Campbell, a program that made headlines this season for wrestling Wyoming in a barn. King also will head to the state of North Carolina, wrestling for Duke next season.
Norwalk's Harper is heading down to up-and-coming program Little Rock. Their head coach, Neil Erisman, was named the NCAA coach of the year with two All-Americans despite the program being created six years ago. After winning a state title in his final season at Norwalk, his coaches were at Wells Fargo Arena to watch him compete.
"I think they're pretty proud of how I did," Harper said.
There are also numerous high school seniors headed to programs like Upper Iowa, which has known commits in Ari Ehtls of Ankeny Centennial, Union's Caleb Olson and Kaden Kremer of Independence. Brody Brisker (Wilton), Zeb Fitzgerald (Dowling Catholic) and Kaden Weber (Nevada) are headed to Grand View University in Des Moines. Ethan Skoglund (Sergeant-Bluff Luton) and Carter West (Burlington Notre Dame) are headed to Central College, while Kyler Scranton (Iowa City West) is headed to Loras College.
Those are just a few of the kids heading to wrestle after high school here in Iowa; they will be looking up to a guy like Boone McDermott, who made his way to the NCAA Division I level from programs like these. There's also high schoolers going just outside of state lines to programs like the University of Sioux Falls (Glenwood's Vinny Mayberry and Jarrett Roos of Sheldon/South O'Brien). Cael Morrow, an Akron-Westfield product, is going to Minnesota State Mankato, while Brand Beaver (Woodbury Central) is going to Southwest Minnesota State. Bettendorf's Jace Luna is going to St. Cloud State, also in the state of Minnesota.
Women
Leah Chandler (Chariton) - Wartburg College
Kiara Djoumessi (Waverly-Shell Rock) - University of Iowa
Maeley Elsbury (South Tama County) - William Penn University
Olivia Huckfelt (Spencer) - University of Sioux Falls
Aleah Johnson (Raccoon-River Wrestling) - Simpson College
Jasmine Luedtke (Ottumwa) - Wartburg College
Kadyn Meyer (South Winneshiek) - Wartburg College
Layla Phillips (Mason City) - Simpson College
Bella Porcelli (Southeast Polk) - Grand View University
Hannah Rogers (Bettendorf) - Simpson College
Naomi Simon (Decorah) - University of Iowa
Emmalee Spurgeon (Pella) - Grand View University
Izzy Strickert (Independence) - Wartburg College
Dionni Garcia-Vasquez (West Liberty) - Simpson College
A whole lot of Iowa here. Of the 13 listed, 12 are headed to Iowa programs.
Simpson makes a ton of sense for Iowa talent, coached by Hawkeye legend Jeff McGinness. McGinness was a two-time national champion as a well as four-time undefeated Iowa state champion. His name has a lot of pull around the state. He nearly brought in Simon, a four-time undefeated champion herself. McGinness is the Iowa USAW women’s coach for Simon's national career. Simon's relationship with McGinness made it really tough to pass on Simpson, but she said the opportunity to wrestle in Carver-Hawkeye Arena was too good to pass up.
Watrburg, coached by a former two-time NCAA All-American Brady Kyner, also has a significant haul of Iowa talent going into year two of the program. Luedtke, a back-to-back state champion, was a particularly nice get for the Knights.
For the Hawkeyes, getting two of the state's best talents was a huge feat. In the 2023-24 season, Iowa just had three homegrown talents in Taylor, Lilly Luft (Charles City) and Ella Schmit (Bettendorf). With the state of Iowa's passion for women's wrestling growing, coach Clarissa Chun sees the number of Iowa women on her roster growing.
"There's still like so many great rising talents in the state of Iowa that are sophomores and juniors that are young that are coming up," Chun said. "I think Iowa will continue to strengthen and grow because of the level of coaches around the state of Iowa that are accessible to these young women."
Sioux Falls, which wrestled Iowa in a dual late this season, got a nice addition in Huckfelt. She'll be playing softball in the infield and wrestling at heavyweight as a three-time state champion in high school.
If you are an athlete going to college to wrestle in the class of 2024 and don't see your name listed in this story, email Eli McKown at Emckown@DMReg.com to let us know where you're headed.
Eli McKown covers high school sports and wrestling for the Des Moines Register. Contact him at Emckown@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @EMcKown23.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa high school wrestling, college commitments for 2024
