South Dakota State’s Tanner Sloan made history last March when he became just the second Division I NCAA finalist in program history after topping Gavin Hoffman, Jacob Cardenas, Bernie Truax and Rocky Elam during his run through the 197-pound bracket. His performance put South Dakota State's brand on the center mat on Saturday night in March and brought a huge spotlight to a program that is rising quickly in the national rankings and becoming a prominent, competitive Big 12 team once again.
While Sloan’s championship dreams last year came to an end in a 5-3 decision against Pittsburgh’s Nino Bonaccorsi, the veteran Jackrabbit is now back for one last run with his team, hoping to bring individual honors back to Brookings and continue to grow the reputation of a program on the rise.
This 2023-2024 season could be a standout one for Sloan and his Jackrabbit team as a whole, but, to fully understand the development of this program and the stars that now fill its lineup, it’s important to go back six years to when Sloan first arrived on campus alongside current head coach Damion Hahn.
An upward trajectory six years in the making
The year was 2018, and the Jackrabbits had just had the best season in program history. Seven athletes qualified for the national tournament that season, three ended up on the podium, and one of those three, Seth Gross, won the 133-pound bracket to become the school’s first DI national champion.
South Dakota State was on the map.
Less than a week later, though, then South Dakota State head coach Chris Bono left for Wisconsin. Suddenly, a program that had been building towards national prominence and achieved a historical feat was without its leader.
But that’s when the South Dakota State administration found Damion Hahn. A two-time national champion for the University of Minnesota and a longtime assistant and associate head coach with the Cornell Big Red, Hahn was hired at South Dakota State a little under two weeks after Bono’s departure, and he’s been building the Jackrabbit program in his vision ever since.
The process wasn’t easy though, far from it. Hahn remembers his first meeting with the team after he took the job, sitting in a room with the 15 athletes he had left on his roster and thinking “the success or failures that we have here at South Dakota State will be based around this team.”
This was his foundation. Thus began the development of South Dakota State in the Hahn era.
An NCAA finalist, a Big-12 scholar athlete and a rising star
Sloan was a member of the first freshman class that came to campus in the fall for Hahn’s inaugural season. All-American Clay Carlson was there too. Both athletes would redshirt that season, but their time was coming.
ALL-STARS: Read more about how South Dakota State's Tanner Sloan performed in the 2023 All-Star Dual
South Dakota State finished the dual season 3-10 in 2019, a far cry from the 14-2 record the year before, but it wouldn’t take long for improvements to show. With Sloan and Carlson in the lineup the following season along with national qualifiers Henry Pohlmeyer, Tanner Cook and Zach Carlson, the team went 12-6 before COVID canceled the national tournament early.
Momentum was building, and the success was becoming contagious.
Carlson, who would earn his first podium finish the following year, in 2021, credits his growth on and off the mat, and the growth of the program, to Hahn and Co., a group that he said invested in him as a person and helped him to jump levels beyond where he and others expected when he first moved to Brookings as a freshman.
Clay Carlson named to Academic All-America Men's At-Large Second Team
— Jackrabbit Wrestling (@GoJacksWrestle)
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A state champion from Minnesota, Carlson came to the program as someone who had success in the past, but, once in college, Carlson bought into Hahn’s program even more, started training smarter and trusting in his coaches. His work paid off, as he finished eighth as a redshirt sophomore and then fifth as a redshirt junior.
“It’s kind of like a fairy tale to me thinking about where I started out when I first got here to where I am now,” Carlson said. “ I‘m going to graduate with my master's [degree] after this year. I’m a two-time Big 12 Scholar Athlete of the Year. I’m a two-time All-American. I’m married already. My life is awesome.”
Carlson heads into this season ranked sixth and expects to be back on the mat in January competing for a national title after being sidelined with an injury for the fall. While he's been recovering though, Carlson has been there, on the bench, supporting his program and his teammates. He takes pride in being a veteran Jackrabbit, and he's committed to success in everything he does from academics to injury rehab to his relationships to his workouts.
“This is my sixth year with this coaching staff, and they know me and they know that if they tell me to do something that is hard, I’m going to do it as hard as I can,” Carlson said. “I just have so much respect for the coaching staff that it’s easy for me to be coachable because I value what they say, and it hasn’t steered me wrong yet. I have applied the things that they’ve told me, and I’ve reaped the benefits of it."
This enthusiasm and loyalty help define this new era of South Dakota State wrestling. These are athletes who want to be here and who want to defy expectations, but this athlete leadership doesn't just start and end with Sloan and Carlson.
The success is extending to some of the newer faces, athletes that Hahn said might be under-the-radar for some fans, but not for him.
ALL-AMERICANS: These are the 80 athletes who finished on the podium last season
One of the latest examples of those breakout South Dakota State stars is Tanner Jordan, the NCAA Wrestler of the Week who topped two-time All-American Patrick McKee in last week's dual against Minnesota to stay undefeated on the year. Jordan is in his third year as a starter now for the Jackrabbits but someone clawing his way up the rankings of a volatile 125-pound weight class and showing off the kind of development that Carlson described when talking about his own South Dakota State experience.
The future of the Jackrabbits
As a team, the Jackrabbits are 3-1 on the year with the lone loss coming against Minnesota, but the competition is about to intensify. South Dakota State will take the mat this weekend in Las Vegas for the Cliff Keen Invitational before wrestling No. 9 Nebraska on December 16 and No. 6 Michigan on January 4. The Big 12 conference schedule starts on January 19 with Northern Colorado and continues through February 25th with a rivalry dual against North Dakota State, one week after the February 18th dual against the No. 3 Missouri Tigers. This is a rigorous schedule, but it's one that will prepare the Jackrabbits for March.
South Dakota State sent eight qualifiers to nationals last year and, with seven athletes in the InterMat rankings and eight athletes in FloWrestling's rankings, the Jackrabbits are set up for a similar result this year. But, for these athletes, it's not just about qualifying for the national tournament, it's about winning.
NCAA Wrestler of the Week
— NCAA Wrestling (@NCAAWrestling)
No. 22 Tanner Jordan remains undefeated following his victory over No. 6 Patrick McKee of Minnesota. x
Sloan (and Carlson) will have one more shot each at their championship dreams. Such a dream comes with pressure but also with the recognition of just how far these two athletes, and this program, has come in the last six years.
"When I first got here, my goal was to be a starter and an All-American. Now it’s contending for national tiles," Sloan said. "My assets as a wrestler kind of really took off once I took off once I got here and had this coaching system. They pour their heart and soul into not just me but the other guys as well."
When Hahn said back in 2018 that the “the success or failures..at South Dakota State will be based around this team," this is what he was talking about.
He's coached a national finalist from that original squad. Now he'll strive to help Sloan and his teammates take that final step towards individual national titles while wearing the SD logo on their chests.
