Edmunds County Tribune -

Ipswich/Leola/Bowdle, I-L-B, is scheduled to attend the Region 1B high school wrestling tourney on Saturday, Feb. 16 at Redfield, beginning at 9 a.m. The top four winners in each weight class will advance to the State B meet, scheduled on February 22-23 in Rapid City.

Carter Heinz, a junior, was able to do just that last year and is obviously hoping to attend and place in this year's meet. And he probably wouldn't mind bringing along more Tigers, as well!

The I-L-B varsity prepped for post-season action with a recent dual meet in Miller, on February 5, hosted by Miller/Highmore-Harrold. The Tigers were able to defeat the host team there, but lost duals to Kimball/White Lake and Wessington Springs/ Woonsocket/ Wolsey-Wessington.

The area wrestling program has shown gradual improvement from year to year. Just three years ago it had only three high school wrestlers and one coach (Todd Naasz) and some 27 youth wrestlers. It now has 13 high school/middle-school participants from Ipswich, Leola and Bowdle and Austin Manzey has been added as an assistant high school coach. That team is overall quite youthful and its future ranks should be bolstered by over 50 youth wrestlers from Ipswich, Edmunds Central, Leola and Bowdle. And there are now a total of four youth coaches.

Coach Naasz started his career as an assistant coach in 2008 and then became head varsity coach in 2011. He took over the youth coaching duties in 2015.