No. 13 Iowa State and No. 15 Purdue will face off Sunday evening at Humboldt High School.
The reasoning behind the unique neutral venue? Both head coach Kevin Dresser and Purdue’s head coach, Tony Ersland, are former state champions for the Humboldt Wildcats.
“I think it’s going to be a great opportunity for us,” said Dresser. “How often does small town Northwest, Iowa get two top-15 programs in the nation? I don’t think anybody else has two division one head wrestling coaches that wrestled at the same high school in a town of fewer than 5000 people. It’ll be buzzing.”
The dual sold out in one day.
“I remember sitting in the balcony thinking how cool it would be to run out there as a high school wrestler,” said Dresser, who began attending wrestling meets as a six year old with his late father.
Dresser posted a 112-11-1 career record and was a two-time state champion for the Wildcats.
“I have a lot of good memories of that gymnasium growing up as a kid, you know?” said Dresser. “It was a great place to grow up. It’s a very sports-minded town.”
Humboldt currently holds the record for the most season ticket holders for Iowa State wrestling, according to Dresser.
This will be a special opportunity for the team and 157-pounder David Carr as well.
“I’m super excited,” Carr said. “It’s gonna be cool. I think it’s gonna be loud and it’s going to feel like the fans are on top of us.”
The Humboldt gym is expected to be standing room only in Sunday’s contest.
“If you’re a college kid and you sign up for wrestling, this is the type of environment you want,” Dresser said. “If you go off the mat, they’ll probably just push you right back on because that’s the kind of environment it will be. I think as a competitor, it’ll be a really fun thing.”
Dresser will also have the opportunity to notch his 200th career coaching win, though he downplayed the milestone.
“It’s just another opportunity to get out there and wrestle a quality team,” Dresser said.
The match will be streamed live via FloWrestling and will begin at 5 p.m. CT.
