Wrestling is in the Colon family blood

[caption id="attachment_11705" align="alignleft" width="270"] JOE COLON[/caption]

Joe Colon continues to take the sport to the next level and wrestles internationally

Former Clear Lake High School State Champion wrestler Joe Colon continues to take his sport to the next level.  For the past year, Colon has been wrestling internationally.  He recently competed at the U.S. World Team Trials in Madison, Wis.

Colon earned wild back-to-back comeback wins of 17-12 over Matt McDonough and 11-8 over Angel Escobedo to storm into the finals of the U.S. World Team Trials.  Colon was one point from being teched before rallying for an improbable 10-1 deficit against McDonough. Colon was down 4-1 in the win against Escobedo in the Challenge Tournament finals.

He advanced to face U.S. Open champion Tony Ramos in the best-of-three freestyle finals.  Ramos, a 2014 World Team member, won 6-0, 4-2 in the final match, making Colon an alternate to Team USA.

Colon is determined to represent the country at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.  USA Wrestling has announced that the Olympic Team Trials will return to Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City on April 8-10, 2016.

Colon is sponsored by Nike, Titan Mercury and PWC.

[caption id="attachment_11706" align="alignleft" width="253"] Jacob Colon, a former Clear Lake High School wrestling standout, now wrestles for Grandview College. -Submitted photo[/caption]

Jacob Colon takes fourth at NAIA Nationals and helps Grandview to national title

A former Clear Lake wrestling standout helped Grandview College to its fourth-straight national team title.  Individually, Jacob Colon took fourth place at NAIA Nationals held in Topeka, Kan.  He was also part of Grandview’s All-Academic team which was third in the NAIA with a 3.0 grade point average.

The Grandview team had the title locked in before the start of the finals session and finished with 147.5 points, which was 38.5 points more than second-place Southern Oregon.

“All four titles we’ve won have been totally different,” said Coach Nick Mitchell.  “And this year was not an exception. It was a really tough tournament. We only had two (wrestlers) in the finals, which was the least over the last four years, but I really thought our team wrestled well having eight guys in the top four.”

Colon, a 133-pound sophomore went to Iowa Central Community College after high school, where he wrestled his way to a third place finish at junior college nationals. He left to go to UNI, and then got back on the mat after taking a long two years off.

Throughout his career Colon has become the definition of “overcoming adversity,” according to Coach Mitchell.

At the Dakota Wesleyan Open on Nov. 15, 2014 he suffered a slight break in his right hand and was out for six weeks.  And at the central regional qualifier tournament on Feb. 21, 2015 Colon hurt his MCL and couldn’t wrestle his medal match.  He couldn’t wrestle during practice the following week because of the MCL injury. His first practice back was Wednesday, March 4, two days before nationals began.

Coach Mitchell looks for Colon to achieve even more next season.

“He’s going to get after it, there’s no doubt about it,” he said.  “Especially after overcoming the adversity he has had this season.”