Iowa State’s David Carr, Alburnett grad Tanner Sloan make Junior freestyle world wrestling team

The Iowa State wrestling program’s strong 2018-19 wrestling season is getting even better.

David Carr, a true freshman for the Cyclones this past season, made the Junior men’s freestyle world team at 74 kilograms (163 pounds) Saturday. Carr swept the best-of-three finals series over Stanford freshman Shane Griffith to punch his ticket to the world championships in August.

Competing inside the Reynolds Coliseum on North Carolina State's campus, the 20-year-old Carr won his only two matches of the weekend. In the first match, he defeated Griffith, 6-3, thanks to a stiff defense and a second-period takedown. In the second, Carr won 6-4 thanks to a takedown that led to two leg laces in the first period.

Carr only wrestled twice because he won the UWW Junior national championship last month in Las Vegas. That gave him a bye to the best-of-three finals in Raleigh this weekend. Griffith, meanwhile, had to navigate the challenge tournament Friday to earn the right to face Carr.

Prior to coming to Iowa State, Carr was a ballyhooed recruit with large expectations. Those came, in part, because Carr won a bronze medal at the Cadet world championships in 2016. This weekend’s result reaffirms his position as one of the country’s finest young wrestling talents.

Back in 2016, Carr made a run to the world semifinals before ultimately falling to a bronze medal. Come August, he’ll travel to Tallinn, Estonia, for his shot at a Junior world title.

Alburnett grad Tanner Sloan makes Junior World Team

Prior to last season, not many outside the state of Iowa knew of Tanner Sloan.

Those of us who watched the Alburnett grad win two state titles knew. Saw the talent. Saw the potential. South Dakota State did, too, and recruited the 2018 graduate hard enough to persuade him to go to Brookings.

In December, Sloan broke out and reached the finals of the Midlands Championships at 197 pounds, defeating Iowa’s Jacob Warner by technical fall along the way. He ultimately went 24-2 in his redshirt seasons, and expectations continued to grow.

And they’re only going to continue to grow after this weekend.

Sloan made the Junior men’s freestyle world team at 97 kilograms (213 pounds). After winning the challenge tournament, the South Dakota State freshman swept Buffalo’s Sam Schuyler in the best-of-three finals to punch his ticket to the Junior world championships.

Sloan continued his torrid redshirt campaign with a second-place finish at the UWW Junior national championships last month. He navigated the bracket as the six-seed before falling to Schuyler, 17-13, in the finals.

As such, Sloan had to win the challenge tournament to earn the right to wrestle Schuyler again. He won with ease twice Friday, then muscled out two wins by a combined three points — 7-6, 6-4 — to best Schuyler for his first age-level world team.

Sloan may have been a relative unknown prior to the 2018-19 college wrestling season. By now, everybody around the country should at least know his name.

Come August, he’ll get a chance to show the rest of the world.

UNI signee reaches best-of-three finals

The future of Northern Iowa wrestling also competed in Raleigh, and while Parker Keckeisen didn’t make the Junior world team, he did show flashes that should make Panther fans everywhere really, really excited.

Keckeisen won the challenge tournament Friday to reach Saturday’s best-of-three finals at 79 kilograms (174 pounds). There, he fell in straight matches to future Penn State wrestler Aaron Brooks by scores of 10-0 and 10-1.

But Brooks is an otherworldly talent — a 2017 Cadet world champion and 2018 Junior world finalist. He’s a top-tier, blue-chip recruit who's expected to contribute to the Nittany Lion machine in the not-so-distant future. There’s no shame in losing to a guy with those credentials.

But Keckeisen impressed over the weekend. In round one, he defeated Jackson Turley, the No. 64 overall recruit in the 2019 class, then picking off a pair of collegiate wrestlers in Penn’s Jake Hendricks and Minnesota’s Jake Allar to win the challenge tournament.

Keckeisen has sterling credentials of his own: He is considered the No. 30 overall recruit in the 2019 class and reached the semifinals and finished fourth at the UWW Junior men’s freestyle national championships last month.

This weekend, he nearly made the Junior world team, too. Northern Iowa wrestling continued its upward trend this past season, thanks to a top-15 NCAA team finish and Drew Foster winning a national title.

A talent like Keckeisen will only help the Panthers continue to climb.

Cody Goodwin covers wrestling and high school sports for the Des Moines Register. Follow him on Twitter at @codygoodwin.