After earning a No. 1 ranking from the preseason to the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) National Tournament in Des Moines, Iowa, Feb. 22 and 23, the North Idaho College wrestling team polished off its season with its 14th national title in school history. NIC shared the title with Labette Community College (Kan.), Labette’s second consecutive national championship, as both teams finished with 120 points.
“It was pretty important to put up No. 14 there and show that North Idaho College is still the team to beat,” NIC head coach Pat Whitcomb said.
NIC led after the first day, but Labette climbed back and almost won the title.
NIC led Labette 120-116 going into the 165-pound championship match between NIC’s Ryan Zumwalt and Labette’s Devin Aguirre.
After Aguirre defeated Zumwalt in an 11-7 decision (to give Aguirre his second consecutive individual national championship), Labette received four points in the team standings to tie NIC at 120. Labette had another chance to gain points and win the national championship outright but Pratt Community College’s (Kan.) Landon Keiswetter defeated Labette’s Cody Johnson.
Since Labette is 350 miles away from Des Moines, Zumwalt said that Labette brought its whole team and it cheered its teammates on and it cheered against NIC.
“They were just going against us no matter who it was,” Zumwalt said. “Getting wins like that was pretty cool to keep them quiet in that corner.”
Zumwalt was the only NIC wrestler to make it to a championship round.
Jarrett Morrill (141) and V.J. Giulio (197) earned third place finishes. Giulio pinned five of his opponents in the tournament to give his team a boost in bonus points.
Because of a knee injury that Zumwalt suffered at last year’s national tournament, he hadn’t wrestled all season until the Region 18 Tournament Feb. 9.
Zumwalt, a 157-pounder last season, won the Region 18 Tournament at 165 with no matches under his belt at that point of the season to advance to nationals where he finished second.
“That’s just stuff that’s kind of a movie script, not real life,” Whitcomb said. “But he knows how to win and he is a fierce competitor and loyal to his team.”
Morrill won his first two matches before falling in his third match 2-1 to James DeKrone of Nassau Community College, the eventual 141-pound champion.
“It was a little disappointing but once I was able to pull myself back together I got on kind of a roll and I started wrestling really well,” Morrill said.
Giulio was ranked No. 1 in his weight class and was the favorite to win. After opening up the tournament with two pins, he lost his third match.
Giulio said he had about 15 minutes to recover from the time of his loss to his next match. Giulio said that Whitcomb gave him some encouragement during some of that time.
“A loss in the quarters it hurt, but Coach grabs me and he says, ‘This team needs you and if you give up now, we don’t win a national title. You need to get behind your team and start wrestling for them.’ That hit me home. It completely reset my brain and I was back on track, back on getting refocused,” Giulio said.
Giulio said a lot of things went against the Cardinals during the tournament, but they had been preparing for that all year.
“All through the season the thing that Coach (Whitcomb) would always say in practice was ‘We’re not wrestling for if everything goes right. We’re wrestling for when things go wrong, and we can still come out on top’ and that’s just what ended up happening.”
Brock Banta (125) finished fourth for NIC, Michael Carreon (133) and Jeremy Golding (149) finished fifth and Caleb Rivera (184) took sixth.
The national title was Whitcomb’s fourth at NIC (1998, 2001, 2003 and 2013).
According to njcaa.org, the last time two NJCAA wrestling schools shared a national title was in 1998 when Lassen College (Calif.) tied NIC for the championship, Whitcomb’s first title with NIC.