February 20, 2024
With two wrestlers that placed and two that advanced to the 3rd round of the consolation bracket, the Earlham Cardinals finished 16th in Class 1A at the state wrestling tournament last week. That’s not bad for anybody. For a school that didn’t even have its own program until two years ago, it’s terrific.
Earlham took four experienced wrestlers to Wells Fargo for one of the biggest and best high school state wrestling tournaments in the nation. Seniors Ryan Stiles and Payton Harger and junior Dallas Canoyer were repeat state qualifiers. Max Millage is a seasoned freshman who has wrestled in plenty of big AAU tournaments. Still, preparing for the four-day grind that is the state tournament is never easy for the competitors.
“It’s a different beast,” said Coach Strandberg. “You can talk the kids through it and tell them what it’s going to be like. But I guess the only way to prep for it is to actually experience it.”
Canoyer added, “Teammates are a big help mentally, to take your mind off the stress. The coaches provided a good structure to follow with extra workouts to break up the long day and to help make weight.”
Canoyer and Stiles were highly ranked all season and did not disappoint at state. Canoyer finished 4th at 116 and Stiles finished 5th at 165. It was the second straight year that Stiles placed and Canoyer’s first time getting on the podium.
“Dallas and Ryan are four-, five-sport athletes. That’s what we have here in Earlham,” said Coach Strandberg.” We’re seeing that there are a lot of these other kids (at state) in the later rounds, they specialize. For (Dallas and Ryan) to be in there competing like they are, it’s pretty astonishing, really. It’s a tip of the hat to them on the type of kids that they are.”
Canoyer and Stiles place
Both Dallas Canoyer and Ryan Stiles won their first two matches at state, then lost in the semifinals. In the consolation bracket, Canoyer won his first match, then lost the 3rd-place match to finish 4th. Stiles lost his first consolation match, then won the 5th-place match.
After a stellar career, Stiles was pleased to walk off the mat for the last time after a win.
“After my last match, I was just full of mixed emotions,” said Stiles. “It’s always good to win and to win the last one, but it’s sad to know it’s over.”
Stiles and his presence will be missed next season.
“He’s a gamer,” said Coach Strandberg. “He had some ups and downs this year and had some times where he maybe didn’t look like he was going to compete to the level that he did last year. But you put him in that tournament, and that kid—when the lights turn on—he competes hard. For 6 minutes, he’s your worst nightmare.”
Canoyer has wrestled at a high level since he stepped into the lineup as a freshman. With all his success, he hadn’t placed until this year. From day one, he was determined to get there.
“It feels great to finally make this accomplishment,” said Canoyer. “Especially since the past 2 years I was just short of making the podium.”
Canoyer wrestled at 120 in the early part of the season, but around Christmas, made the decision to move to 113. That was a positive for him—but it wasn’t easy.
“(Moving down a weight) makes him an extremely tall, long, and technical 13 pounder, which is a lot to handle,” said Coach Strandberg. “He still has to make weight for four days, so there is a lot of discipline that’s involved in that too. There are things going on behind the scenes that he’s doing really well that make him successful.”
Earlham wrestling has high standards now, and both Stiles and Canoyer lived up to those. Both wrestlers gave themselves passing grades for their performances.
“I thought I wrestled a great tournament,” said Stiles. “I don’t think a kid got off easy wrestling me and that’s the ultimate goal.”
Canoyer said, “On one hand I feel I wrestled a good tournament with a good outcome. But on the other hand, I still have a lot of things to improve on to get to the top and the next level.”
Stiles and Canoyer will move onto spring sports shortly, but will enjoy a little downtime, first.
“(The season) is a grind for sure! But rewarding in the end,” said Canoyer. “I am going to take a week or two break before starting track and Freestyle/Greco wrestling. And eat!”
Stiles said, “Hopefully the weather warms up a little bit and I can start hitting the course.”
Good showing by Harger and Millage
They call 3rd round consolations the ‘blood round’ for a reason. Everything is on the line: win and you place—lose, you go home. Neither Payton Harger (126) nor Max Millage (106) made it out of the blood round at state, but that didn’t diminish their terrific seasons. Both wrestled consistently and were ranked for most of the year.
Harger won 41 matches this season and over 100 during his excellent career. He’s been a role model in the room with his work ethic and attitude and did everything a coach would want an athlete to do. The fact that a wrestler of his caliber never placed at state is indicative of how tough that actually is.
“He’s a foundation kid,” said Coach Strandberg. “He’s the kind of kid that you want in your program, especially getting started from day one. He’s been one of the kids that has done things right. The way he works out; the way he trains; his mentality. A lot of those kinds of things you just can’t teach. And he had those from the get-go. It was tough watching him walk off the mat with not ever stepping foot on that stand.”
Being seeded 11th didn’t help Harger. There was a solid argument for him to have a higher seed coming into the tournament. A point system is used, and Harger probably lost points for not being a district champion.
“He beat kids that ended up on the stand. Multiple times,” said Coach Strandberg. “He beat the guys seeded 2, 5, and 7. But we had our opportunities. You still have to wrestle the kid in front of you and do the best you can.”
Like Harger, Millage won his first match, lost his second, then won two consolation matches. He wrestled well in his blood round match, but fell behind in the 1st period, 2-0. After that, his opponent, Ethan Humphrey of West Branch, went into defensive mode and Millage could never get a good shot at him.
“We go out and we attack, we get after points, and we do that for 6 minutes,” said Coach Strandberg of his team’s style. “And that’s kind of a lot to take on. The line for error is really small. If you give up a takedown in a tight match, these (other) kids are all fairly defensive and good at it, which makes it really tough to get back into that match.”
But Millage opened some eyes in what certainly won’t be his last state tournament. “He competed really well,” said Coach Strandberg. “Most people down there that didn’t know who he was that got eyes on him kind of went wow, ‘This kid’s tough.” I guarantee everybody that wrestled him prepared for him after they saw him wrestle.”
Earlham Echo 
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