THE FOURTH-RANKED WEBSTER CITY WRESTLING SQUAD won the program’s first district championship since 1991 on Saturday inside their own gym. (DFJ photo by Tyler Anderson)

There are a lot of advantages when it comes to competing at home, especially in the postseason.

The most crucial edge is a sizable, often friendly crowd, complemented with familiar settings and the lack of travel time.

The Webster City wrestling team enjoyed those comforts and then some on Saturday, pushing five grapplers — freshman Linden Phetxoumphone, junior Carson Doolittle, senior Austin Mason, senior CJ Hisler and junior Jaxon Cherry — to the IHSAA State Championships and claiming their first district banner since 1991.

According to Chad Hisler, WCHS wrestling coach, the 2022-23 campaign saw a lot of accomplishments, from winning a North Central Conference title and a sixth-place finish at the IHSAA State Dual Team Tournament, to all of his wrestlers landing spots on the podium.

As much as Hisler loves to see wrestlers advance to state, it can be painful to see an individual’s season come to end.

“It was a great day, for sure,” Hisler said. “When you get to districts, it’s always bittersweet, because there are some kids who don’t make it. When you look at other districts around the state, I believe that ours was one of the tougher ones. It is what it is, it’s like that every year. It wasn’t based on a lack of effort; it was just tough competition.”

The Lynx ran away with the top spot in the team standings, compiling 204 points with four champs, one runner-up, four third place wrestlers and four fourth place representatives. Behind Webster City was Humboldt (166 points), Carroll (150.5), Hampton-Dumont-CAL (137) and Greene County (97).

Cherry, Doolittle, CJ Hisler, Mason and Phetxoumphone will engage in the Class 2A portion of the IHSAA State Championships, starting at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.

Phetxoumphone (106 pounds, 35-2) pinned Humboldt’s Aden Prenger in 1:14 and avenged his early season loss to Hampton-Dumont-CAL’s Jaysen Stevens, 4-3, to win his weight class. Seeded fourth in his bracket, Phetxoumphone will face the winner of Atlantic’s Braxton Hass and Jack Decker of West Marshall in the second round.

Doolittle (120, 36-1) cruised to his third berth at Iowa’s greatest grappling show with pinfalls on Ryler Ziegmann of Carroll and Southeast Valley’s Caelan Oakes-Sudhish. Ranked first in his bracket, Doolittle will await the winner of Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont’s Landen Davis and ADM’s Jacob Alexander in the second round.

Mason (170, 32-9) defeated Chase Ragaller of Carroll via a 6-4 decision, before dropping to the second place match after getting pinned by Roland-Story’s Hesston Johnson. Due to a medical forfeit by Humboldt’s Landon Halverson, Mason was awarded the runner-up slot.

“I’m excited, and I’m ready to experience it,” Mason said, after punching his first ticket to state. “It’s something that I’ve been working on for a long time. I’d go to practice every day and I worked hard. I often lift and run on my own, just trying to improve myself. It’s because I wanted to get to this point.”

CJ Hisler (195, 26-1) was a man possessed at district, defeating both Gilbert’s Jackson Stensland and Roland-Story’s Jaxson Kadolph within a span of 40 seconds. Seeded second, CJ Hisler’s road to a potential championship begins with a second round match against the winner of Eagle Grove’s Jack Mendoza and Keegan Snyder of Perry.

Even though Cherry (220, 35-2) took to the mat on three separate occasions, he rolled through Carroll’s Jeep Clark, Humboldt’s Ethan Kunert and Southeast Valley’s Nathan Graves by way of successive pinfalls.

Landing third at state, Cherry will face the winner of Atlantic’s Miles Mundorf and Cole Sigler of Anamosa in the second round of his state bracket.

“Now, we’re going to focus on this week,” Hisler said. “All of the guys on our teams are looking to go and place as high as we can, and that’s our next goal.”

“Linden and Austin have never been before,” added Hisler. “Linden has wrestled in big matches at a lot of different tournaments growing up, and he’ll be ready to go. All of them are very capable of getting on the medal stand. We want our guys to wrestle their best at the end of the year, when it really matters. They’ve been doing that for the past few weeks, at state duals, regionals and conference. We just hope to continue that for one more week, and have them do the best that they can do.”

Senior Brayden Henely (132 pounds, 28-19), sophomore Luke Estlund (145, 23-19), senior Jordan Vankham (152, 29-15) senior Dylan Burnette-Bingham (182, 20-20) all took third place for the Lynx, and sophomore Addison Scott (126, 7-21), sophomore Tristan Mason (138, 18-24), senior Brady Jessen (160, 27-19) and junior Landon Griffin (285, 24-16) settled for fourth place.