Members of the Blue Earth Area High School wrestling team placed ninth recently at the 2009 Luther College Team Wrestling Camp in Decorah, Iowa.

More than 800 athletes attended this year’s Luther Wrestling camps directed by Head Coach Dave Mitchell. 

Clinicians at the camps included standout college wrestlers:

NCAA Champion and former Iowa State University wrestler Zach Roberson; NCAA champion and assistant Luther College wrestling coach Jeff O’Gara; and NCAA Division I All-American wrestlers Moza Fay from Northern Iowa and Charlie Falck from the University of Iowa.

Campers participated in team building activities, intensive ‘Train Like a Norseman’ sessions, technique sessions and live wrestling sessions. 

The camp closed with an individual tournament on Saturday morning.

Two Blue Earth Area wrestlers earned Wrestler of the Day honors at the Luther camp – Dan Eckhardt and Logan Johnson.

Brad Jones, current Luther wrestler, served as Blue Earth’s ‘Camp Coach’ and provided wrestlers with verbal and written feedback.

Students competing for Blue Earth Area included:

Jesse Alleven, Taylor Andrews, Mike Ankeny, Matt Dulas, Daniel Eckhardt, DJ Gronewald, Carter Hanson, Mitch Heronimous; Devon Jahnke, Logan Johnson, Jason Mertens, Chris Ramos, Luke Schavey, Jake Wirtjes and Kysten Zierke.

The team was coached by Head Coach Randy Wirtjes.

Luther wrestling has experienced great success in recent years.

It has included six national Top 5 places and a third-place NCAA Division III Champion-ship finish.

The past season, the Norsemen crowned one NCAA champion, marking the 11th NCAA champion in the school’s wrestling history and the sixth in the last five years.

Luther also had three NWCA Scholar All-Americans.