Sparkling seniors

Nick Hemann admitted his emotions got the best of him Thursday night.  Yes, there’s plenty of wrestling still to be done this season, but when New Hampton hosted Decorah and Osage in a triangular that night, it was, in some ways, a goodbye to eight seniors who mean so much to the Chickasaw wrestling coach.  “Oh my gosh, I got real emotional because this is a group I’ve been especially close to,” Hemann said about the Senior Night festivities. “This is a special group ... they bought into what we’re trying to do — they got into the weight room, they took that extra time to get into the [wrestling] room — and have been great leaders for us almost from the start.”  And the eight seniors went out — at least when it comes to the regular season — on a high note as the Chickasaws rolled past Decorah 63-12 to clinch New Hampton’s second straight Northeast Iowa Conference dual-meet title and then routed Osage 70-9.  But no matter what happened on the mat, this was a night to honor Dylan Robinson, Keaton Geerts, Keegan Tenge, Drew Boeding, Ryan Gorman, Noah Hopp, Cody Bearman and Trevor Svec. All but Svec have been four-year members of the wrestling team and a majority have been wrestling varsity since they were freshmen.   For all of the New Hampton match results, please see the Jan. 24 Tribune.