Doane College underwent a major make over this past year. Out is former Head Coach, Matt Hansen. He was relieved of his duties midway through February, two weeks before nationals. Gone is NAIA national qualifier, and 2018 national runner up, Zach Linton. He has transferred to Campbellesville University in Kentucky. Doane has cleaned the slate. Enter the three time GPAC Coach Of The Year, Dana Vote. Vote previously held stops at Midland University, Concorida University and as a Graduate Assistant at Iowa State. His record beams success. He has won three conference titles, had 11 All Americans, and two National Champions over the last six years. He also has had 12 Academic All Americans. Last season, his Warriors squad had five wrestlers make Nationals with David Berg winning the National Title at 141 pounds.

Vote has very few wrestlers returning for the Tigers. Austin Miller, Frank DeLoa, Garrett Cornwell, Jacob Williams, and Dustin Karstens will be relied on to bring leadership to the young program. Vote brought in 14 new guys to this squad. It was a good number for roughly only having six months to recruit. He brought guys in from high school, junior college, and even some four year transfers. With so many new guys, it can be a process to get the guys to mesh. “we have 19 guys, only five of those are returners. getting them to trust the process and buy in has gone well so far. I’m very happy with the success of the turn around for only being here for eight months” Vote said. He mentioned Baagi Boldma, Jesus Maganda and Michael Scarponi as a couple of the young guys who have transitioned well. Sometime a new coach and a clean slate can be the spark a program needs.

Doane is ready to get the program turned around. Last year, the Tigers struggled to fill out a line up. They only brought seven guys to the conference tournament. Expect to see those numbers go up this year. Vote brought in a great class with guys who can step in and make an immediate impact. when asked about them, he said “The Juco guys are doing great. They’re going to step in right away and compete. Baagi Boldmaa is a hammer. Enkhbold Sukhbaatar, Simon Enkhbold, Austin Miller, Garrett Cornwell just to name a few, had really great summers and hit the weights hard. Chewy (Jesus Maganda) has been awesome, he is going to surprise a lot of people, he looks really good. There is a lot of excitement around here, we have a good core.” It is a new program with new expectations in Crete.

It may be a new team for Coach Vote, but he expects the same from his team. His goals for this season are pretty simple. “I want to see us get better every day. I expect the guys to be competitive. Go out to Conference and Regionals and compete. I wanna get some guys to Nationals get this team off to a good start.” He has set his schedule up nicely. He has one dual in the first month, Ironically its against his former team, The Midland Warriors. He wants to get into a bunch of opens and see how his guys compete. Everyone will get a chance to prove them selves. Depending on how those opens go is how he will set his lineup.

Doane Schedule

11/10 Baker Invite (Baldwin City, Kansas)

11/16 Grandview Invite (Des Moines, Iowa)

11/21 @ Midland University (Fremont, Nebraska)

11/23 UNK Holiday Inn Open (Kearney, Nebraska)

12/7 Doane Open

1/4 Viking/Warrior Open (Fremont, Nebraska)

1/11 Cusatis Open (Hastings, Nebraska)

1/17-18 Missouri Valley Invite (Marshall, Missouri)

1/25 GPAC Duals (Crete, Nebraska)

2/1 Sioux City Open (Sioux City, Iowa)

2/6 vs Northwestern College

2/8 @ Dakota Wesleyan (Mitchell, South Dakota)

2/13 vs Morningside College

2/21-22 GPAC Championships (Sioux City, Iowa)

3/7-8 NAIA Championships (Wichita, Kansas)