This was published in March.
Joel Jesuroga; SE Polk ‘22/Iowa Hawkeyes (committed)/Sebolt Wrestling Academy
Joel Jesuroga has been described to me by someone who is “in the know” at SE Polk as one of the very best wrestlers to ever come from there. Apparently he has had moments of wrestling brilliance on the mat and in the room. He put together a great HS career which concluded last week. He’s probably not satisfied with it, but it’s better than 99% of the other wrestlers out there. Joel Jesuroga was a 4X State Qualifier/3X Placer/1X Champ. He went; SQ, 4th, 1st, 6th. Every year he got noticeably better than he was the year before. The staff at SE Polk does a great job of getting the most out of their guys. As a Junior he was a state champ and was a 1 point match with 2X champ, Aiden Riggins of Waverly-Shell Rock from going undefeated on the season.
Joel had a disappointing finish at state this year. He ended up placing 6th, but on the bright side, there were bright spots in this past season for him… Just in this season alone, he had wins over the following state champions; Robert Avila of IC West, Dustin Bohren of Bettendorf, Hagen Heistand of Underwood, Cash Raymond of Simley, and Jayden Colon of Montini. He also beat finalists; Jordan Cullors of Broken Arrow, Jacob Frost of Dowling, Nathan Vandehey of Freedom, Cody Goebel of Mukwonado and Mason Allessio of Joliet. That is a total of 10 State finalists…5 champs and 5 runner-ups that he beat… just this year. So yeah, it’s not like the season was a total failure just because of one tournament (state)… His good moments outweighed the negative ones this year. Another great moment was his team, SE Polk winning another state title this year!
If you saw Joel Jesuroga at the state tournament this past weekend, it was probably difficult to not feel bad for the guy. I know I did. I caught the tail-end of his 3A 145 semis match in which he lost to eventual champion, Ryder Downey of Indianola… A very close match in one of the deepest weights of the state tournament this year. The next day, I heard he medical forfeited out of the tournament and the word on the street was that he caught pneumonia. And take this for what it’s worth, but I don’t doubt that rumor one bit. When I saw him on Saturday he appeared to be feeling just awful. Not like, heartbroken… that too. He appeared heartbroken and straight-up sick with something. If this were the case, gosh, what a terrible time to end up with that.
Joel went 38-4 on the season this year, but two of those losses were medical forfeits, so to me, he was actually 38-2 this year. He finished with a career record of 123-17. Joel also won a Junior freestyle state title and finished as the Junior Greco-Roman state runner-up, too. Joel was a member of the Iowa Junior State Freestyle Dual Team that won National Duals last summer and was one of the team’s most reliable contributors, finishing with a record of 6-1 in his matches. He is ranked nationally at 145 lbs. His little brother, Nate Jesuroga picked up his 2nd State title this past weekend and has one more year to go. Nate has been successful on the world scale. Both Jesuroga brothers are committed to wrestle for the University Of Iowa and IMO, they picked up two elite recruits with those two. Joel still has a lot of untapped potential. High ceiling with him.
UPDATE 7/22/2022: Since this post was originally published, Joel has added an Iowa Junior Freestyle State Championship, he had an undefeated showing for Team Iowa at the Junior National Duals and placed 4th at Junior Freestyle Nationals in
Congrats on a great HS career, Joel! And even if you are upset with how the state tournament went this year, in the grand scheme of things, it was just one of the many tournaments you had this season and you had a ton of great moments at the others. A great season despite how it ended! Good luck!
