A red-hot Knoxville wrestling team comes to Pella High tonight for a dual with the Little Dutch.  

Pella High head coach Joe Burch says his team is excited to take on the Panthers, though they recognize what a challenge it will be.  He adds that he’s looking for his athletes to dig a little deeper to find the effort to win.

“We’re really looking for individual performance improvement, hoping that the guys do their very best and leave it on the mat,” said Burch. “We can’t give up close matches. We’ve lost a couple of those in the past weeks, and hopefully the guys have learned that they can push a little bit harder and hopefully come out on top.”

The Panthers stand at 6-2 in dual meets after going 4-1 at the Oskaloosa Duals this past Saturday.  Coach Ron Peterson says Jay Fresh has shown the drive to be successful late in the season, adding that several of his teammates are not far behind.  

“He’s got one goal, and that’s to win a state championship. He [Fresh] did a ton of wrestling this summer,” said Peterson.

“Lane Colwell – I’ve been around wrestling a long time – that kid’s got a tremendous amount of talent. I’m really impressed with Aaron Crossett, Colton Spaur, [and] James Stittsworth. Those guys all have got a shot. They’ve got to get through our district – which is loaded – but there’s some talent in that room.”

The Panthers still sport two grapplers ranked in the latest Predicament top ten with Fresh fourth at 113 pounds and Colton Spaur ranked sixth at 170 pounds.  The dual between Knoxville and Pella is set to start tonight at 6:30 p.m. in the East Gymnasium at Pella High.