#8 Jesse Ybarra Verbals To Iowa
#8 Jesse Ybarra Verbals To Iowa
Fargo champ Jesse Ybarra, ranked 8th at 120lbs, has verbally committed to wrestle for the Iowa Hawkeyes in college.
Since NCAAs ended, no team has been as active as the Hawkeyes. Today, Iowa picked up another big commitment, receiving a verbal from Fargo champ Jesse Ybarra.
After long thought, I’m proud to announce that Im going to be verbally committing and continuing my academic and athletic career at the university of Iowa! Thank you to all my family, friends and coaches who have supported me throughout this journey...go hawks! #FightforIowa pic.twitter.com/BjyYybo5n0
— Jesse Ybarra (@JesseYbarra17) September 27, 2018
The announcement comes just a few days after taking his official visit to Iowa City. Ybarra told FloWrestling the following about his commitment:
In my heart it felt right. The coaches and wrestling team made me feel like family and it was a place I wanted to be.
After Patrick Kennedy, Ybarra is the Hawkeyes' second verbal from the class of 2020. He is #42 on the junior Big Board and the only wrestler from Arizona on the list. Ybarra is the highest rated prospect from AZ since his former teammate, Roman Bravo-Young.
A junior out of Sunnyside high school, Ybarra is ranked 8th at 120 pounds after having a breakout summer. He started it off by winning the Pan Am trials at 55kg and then capped it off with a freestyle stop sign in Fargo Cadets.
Carrying a 69-3 career record into this season, he plans on wrestling 126 for Sunnyside. Right now, we have Ybarra projected as the 11th best prospect at 141lbs, though it is only the beginning of his junior year so that could of course change.
Hawkeye fans will have the opportunity to watch Ybarra on Saturday, October 20th at Agony in Ames. He'll be facing past Fargo champ and two-time Akron finalist Jeremiah Reno of Missouri. You can watch that LIVE on Flo!
Though he was not mentioned in the article about Iowa's recruiting targets, that was before knowing he would be making an official visit. It will be interesting to see where Ybarra fits in the lineup early on. If he's done growing, he fits in right after Spencer Lee at 125. However, if he's closer to a 133 or 141 as we expect, his redshirt freshman year will likely overlap with the final year for Austin DeSanto or Jason Rentria, depending upon how redshirts play out.