Lundquist helps in ‘fueling the machine’

CORNING – In a state steeped with hollowed wrestling tradition, high school wrestling has been at the forefront of the Hawkeye State’s claim to athletic fame, but the girls’ side of the sport is beginning to write its own story.

With 87 wrestlers competing in the inaugural girls’ state tournament in 2019, the tournament saw a 302% increase in competitors after its first season. The 2020 tournament brought 350 wrestlers who competed in 11 weight classes throughout the two-day event at Waverly-Shell Rock high school.

Comparing to the IHSAA Traditional State Wrestling Tournament – hosting 672 wrestlers each year – held in the 16,110 seat Wells Fargo Arena, the girls’ Iowa Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association state tournament is smaller in size, but every bit as competitive.

“Considering I only got to watch one, there were some pretty high-caliber girls there,” said Southwest Valley head coach Cody Konecne. “Abby McIntyre was there, and she wrestled a couple of the Logan-Magnolia girls. It’s pretty intense. It’s just like watching the boys go after it. Nobody backs down and everybody is just kind of thrown right into it, so it’s pretty fun to watch.”

Southwest Valley’s girls wrestling, while growing, had one wrestler during the 2019-2020 season, Adyson Lundquist.

A former cheerleader turned wrestler, Lundquist racked up multiple late-season wins to finish up a stellar freshman season. She recorded six pins – tied for a tournament-high – en route to taking fifth place at the IWCOA girls state tournament.

The Timberwolf freshman, competing in the first wrestling matches of her career this season, is no stranger to the grandest stage of the sport.

Lundquist’s father Matt was a state runner up during his time and her brother Teagan was a three-time state qualifier and two-time state medalist in 2017 and 2018.

Coming from bloodlines so entrenched in the sport, Lundquist felt the need to carry on the successful bloodline.

“I did wrestling cheerleading last year, and I don’t know, I’ve always kind of thought about [wrestling] from being around it so much,” Lundquist said. “Last year, being a cheerleader, I realized that it wasn’t my thing, and I wanted to wrestle instead.”

Lundquist said the decision to join the team instead of cheer didn’t surprise anyone. But, with that change, came success during her first season at the high school level.

She was ranked No. 9 at 106 for IAWrestle’s Iowa High Schools Girls Rankings in March. Adding to her resumé, she also took the spot for 106 at the 2020 AAU state tournament, first at the Riverside tournament, first at the Colfax tournament and first at Atlantic’s Junior Varsity tournament.

Seeing Lundquist’s abilities and knowing her family’s heritage, Konecne acts as if she is just another wrestler in the room, helping her to reach her goals of taking the top spot on the podium and wrestling in college.

“If we treat it the same way, she’s just the same person as the next guy in practice,” Konecne said. “We’re trying not to even think about gender at all honestly. I think maybe that’s helping her out quite a bit because I don’t cut her any more slack than I cut the next guy. If she does dumb freshman stuff, I’m going to call her out on it, and it’s not because she’s a girl. It’s because she’s acting like a freshman.”

Despite the success, Lundquist said she wasn’t satisfied with a fifth-place girls state finish, knowing she only has three years remaining in high school. She feels being treated as just another wrestler is part of what fuels and helps her to be successful on the mat.

“I just know the guys do practice a lot harder,” Lundquist said. “You need the intensity to get better because I don’t think girls should be treated differently in the practice room if they’re going to be in the same sport.”

Future of female Timberwolves

The Timberwolves, hoping to add more girls to the team, are taking steps to put the word out that girls wrestling is alive and taking steps to build a tradition in the program.

“We have all of the place winners from years past, and we started a new wall with girls wrestling,” Konecne said. “… We wanted to do that with girls too, that way people could see it. People could see that’s real and something they can achieve.”

As Lundquist’s accolades piled up during her freshman campaign, Konecne feels her success has more girls talking about making their way into Southwest Valley’s wrestling room.

“Ady is fueling the machine that is girls wrestling, maybe not in southwest Iowa, but at Southwest Valley,” Konecne said. “We use Abby McIntyre from Glenwood as a benchmark in this neck of the woods. Maybe by the time Ady is a senior, people will be using her name like that.”

Unable to use the spring and summer as a chance to bring interested girls to tournaments and practices due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Lundquist became the key player in extending the Southwest Valley wrestling tradition.

Lundquist said she continues to talk to high school and middle school girls who are thinking about trying out for wrestling, using social media as her way of recruiting them to join the team.

Feeling responsible for building up female numbers, Lundquist has high expectations for the program and the legacy she will leave behind for girls wrestling in Corning.

“I want to be the girl that started Southwest Valley’s girls wrestling team,” Lundquist said. “Obviously, it’s getting bigger, and now that we have these girls getting out, I want to be the one that started that at Southwest Valley.”

In small communities throughout the state, names of former wrestling champions are talked about no matter the time of year. As girls wrestling grows, Konecne feels Lundquist has an opportunity to become a name young female wrestlers are compared to and young girls look up to.

“It’s hard not to talk about success,” Konecne said. “So, if you get anybody that’s really showing a large amount of success, I think you’ll talk about them just like anybody else.”

Understanding the part she plays – even as 15-year-old – in building up girls wrestling, Lundquist takes pride in being a role model for young girls and looks to use that high standing to contribute to the future of the sport.

“There is a little girl from Clarinda and she wrestles,” Lundquist said. “At the AAU state she was wrestling, and she would come talk to me and tell me ‘good job.’ It made me feel like I was doing something. ... It makes me feel good when I’m showing these younger people what it’s like to be successful.”