Month of ACL championships for Dylan Graham
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July has been quite a month so far for Ringgold County resident Dylan Graham.
In the world of competitive cornhole, also known as bags, Graham not only captured two titles at a national tournament in Virginia, but he also claimed Iowa state championships in three events, securing his place as the overall Iowa state champion for the 2025 season.
And next week he will compete at the World Championships of the American Cornhole League (ACL) in South Carolina.
Graham is the son of Daniel and Jentry Graham of rural Diagonal and a 2025 graduate of Mount Ayr High School.
Virginia competition
The ACL signature competition was held over the Fourth of July weekend in Richmond, VA.
A signature is a major tournament that features the top professional and amateur players from across the nation. Richmond was the sixth and final signature of the 2025 season, leading to the World Championships later this month.
In his first event, Graham competed in the highest bracket against 64 of the top individual amateur players under the age of 18.
“Junior singles don’t always tell me how I’m going to throw that weekend, but usually, when it goes pretty good, the rest of the weekend is better, which helps, for sure,” he said. “I always want to be locked in mentally in that tournament.”
Graham remained undefeated in the bracket to win the junior singles title.
“I stayed on the winner side throughout and won my first game, actually only by one point,” he said, “but after that, I was on fire the rest of the bracket and won it. So that was a good tournament
there.”
The next day, in the amateur doubles event, Graham teamed up with Lucas Piper, a fellow amateur player from Michigan, to compete against 300 other teams.
“I was super pumped about that because I played with this kid I’ve never played with,” he said. “We just played a lot of tournaments before, and we both saw potential in each other.”
After going 5-1 in the qualifying rounds, Graham and Piper eventually played their way into the Final Four in the event. In the championship match, they twice defeated the team that had handed them their only loss to capture first place.
Graham and Piper will team up once again at the World Championships.
Iowa championships
Two weeks later, Graham competed in the Iowa State Championship tournament at Marshalltown.
In his first event, the Open Doubles, Graham teamed up with Brad Kraft, who is ranked in the top ten of the over-55 senior division.
The Graham-Kraft match-up came out on top of 27 other teams to capture the Open Doubles title.
Later that day, Graham competed in the Open Singles event against the top individual players regardless of age.
“Open singles was the last event of the day, and I had played all day,” he said. “I was throwing decent, but I was struggling a little bit. And then the humidity came in because they had the doors open and made the boards really sticky, which definitely helped my game out, for sure. And so I got hot, and I took down the Open Singles title.”
Graham’s final event at state was the Junior Singles, for players 18-and-under.
As he did in Virginia, Graham had to fight back through the losers bracket to reach the finals.
In the best-of-three championship match, Graham twice defeated the player who had given him his only loss to capture his third state title of the tournament.
As stated earlier, Graham finished the 2025 season ranked first in the state, which would normally qualify him to earn professional status next year. Except…
“They’ll get me my pro card,” he said, “but since I’m doing the college deal, I can’t accept it, so I’ll have to just pass on it for now. But it definitely was my goal to earn a pro card this year, so I did that, at least. I just won’t be able to accept it.”
Pro experience
Even though he has to forego pro status for next season, Graham explained how he had the opportunity to play for a professional team, the Missouri Maize, while at Richmond.
“There’s 12 people on a team, he said. “[The Maize team] was really struggling, and a pro team can choose to have one amateur play on the pro team if needed. So, since their pros were struggling, they had one guy step down for the tournament and let me sub in at the last national of the year.”
Competing at the pro level, Graham went 4-0 and helped the Maize finish with a 15-5 record.
Graham already plays on the Missouri Maize amateur team, the Lincoln Maize, which has also qualified to compete at the worlds.
World Championship
The ACL World Championships will be held July 28 to August 3 in Rock Hill, SC.
Among the top competitors from around the globe, Graham has registered to compete in 11 separate events over the seven-day event.
Among those events is the Player Engagement Tournament where the 50 state champions are paired with each other in a blind draw competition.
Incidentally, only three weeks following the World Championships, Graham will move in to his dorm room on the campus of Winthrop University, just down the street from the site of the ACL World competition.
At Winthrop, he will join the university’s defending national champion collegiate cornhole team.
