Jan 19, 2018
There’s been a lot of talk about shifting weights this week and
of course, on Thursday night, the action in Brookings, South Dakota
did not disappoint as No. 15 South Dakota State beat No. 22 Wyoming
20-18 in Big 12 action.
Wait, the dual meet? What are you talking about? We’ll talk about
all that and more on Short Time Shots, a look back at the day’s
wrestling scores and more, I’m Hall of Fame broadcaster, announcer
and writer Jason Bryant. Caution - NAME DROPPING AHEAD.
So by now most of you know Wyoming’s Bryce Meredith, the top-ranked
141-pounder by Flowrestling met up with South Dakota State’s Seth
Gross, the top-ranked 133-pounder by everyone. What started as some
Twitter talk quickly escalated into a match that caused wrestling
historians, including myself, to pore through old results to find
out the last time this happened.
So before we get into the history, Meredith, an NCAA runner-up two
seasons ago, topped Gross, an NCAA runner-up last season 4-2,
scoring midway through the third period to break a 1-1 tie. He
tacked on a riding time point to make it 4-2, but when you look at
what this was, it was much more than a 4-2 win.
Giving promotional credit where credit is due -- Flowrestling,
which has the rights to stream all of South Dakota State’s home
duals -- jumped all over this and rightly so. On Flowrestling Radio
Live on Thursday morning, they brought on Jackrabbits coach Chris
Bono to explain the situation and why he bought in. Bono, who also
had the buy in from Wyoming coach Mark Branch, and Flo, played this
one perfectly. It’s like catching lightning in a bottle -- build
up, the right amount of hype and a great match to finish. We need
more opportunities to showcase the individual matchups we have in
dual meets like this. The only thing lost at the end of the dual
was who won, considering Wyoming still had a chance to win the
match in the last weight.
So, December 18, 1998 - Eric Guerrero handed Stephen Abas a 5-3
loss. What exactly was the situation there? Let me run to the
stacks and tell you, from the pages of Amateur Wrestling News.
Abas was ranked 2nd in the country behind Oklahoma State Cowboy
Teague Moore. So what we could have had was No. 1 vs. No. 2 at 125,
but instead, we had No. 1 at 133 vs. No. 2 at 125. But would we?
NO! You see, Teague wasn’t in the lineup that weekend for Oklahoma
State and it would be future All-American Jeff Ragan getting the
call. So does Stephen Abas go to work on a then-unheralded
underclassmen or does he bump up and face another Californian. It
went 5-3 in Guerrero’s favor.
Shifting our attention to Division II No. 10 Upper Iowa improved to
6-3 with a 30-7 win over MSU Moorhead, that in the Northern Sun
Conference. At 174, Jordan Gundrum picked off eighth-ranked Adam
Blees to highlight the Peacocks victory.
Wins by Isaac Lopez, Richard Bencomo and Tuli Laulu sealed the
victory for coach Jason Ramstetter’s Adams State Grizzlies as they
beat New Mexico Highlands 25-16.
Closer to home, Augustana -- University -- the one in South Dakota
-- picked up a 27-9 Northern Sun victory over Southwest Minnesota
State. Record another fall for Aero Amo at 184 pounds from
Augustana. This guy has been around forever it seems.
Fresh off a championship at the Virginia Duals, King University
returned to its winning ways with a 26-21 win over Coker in ECAC
South action. It was a 5-5 split, and even without nationally
ranked 133-pounder Dustin Kirk, the Tornado were just fine.
Geography note, as offered by Julia Salata. If you’re catching a
trucker out of Philly, he probably had a nice long toke, because
you don’t head west through the Cumberland Gap to get to Johnson
City, Tennessee. Don’t believe me? Google Map it.
Speaking of Moorhead, we’ll go to Division III, where top-ranked
Augsburg headed West on I-94 and stopped just short of the North
Dakota line, but they didn’t stop short of a win. The Auggies
didn’t Fear the Ear, instead, they’d win the four of the first five
matches via bonus and beat Concordia -- the one in Moorhead --
36-6. On the mic out in Moorhead, PA announcer Brian Doucette.
No. 8 UW-Whitewater beat No. 12 UW-La Crosse 19-15. The big Warhawk
win came at 125 pounds where Mike Tortorice knocked off super
freshman Zach Villareal 8-0. At 197, returning national champion
Jordan Newman iced the victory with a 7-4 win over Wesley
Schultz.
Wabash jumped out to a big lead and cruised past Millikin 25-15.
The Little Giants -- yes, we haven’t had too many Little Giants
references this year -- had five of their six wins via bonus,
including a fall at 157 from Kyle Hatch. Millikin also shut out
MacMurray 48-0.
UW-Oshkosh topped MSOE -- that’s the Milwaukee School of
Engineering 36-10. In addition to name-dropping the Concordia
announcer, I’ll do the same for the Titans former announcer Casey
Nelson, who like me, was an applicant for the Timberwolves gig a
few months ago.
Up in the mitten (that’s Michigan in case you’re wondering), Olivet
picked up five bonus victories including technical falls from Tyler
Grimsley at 165 and Ryan Clark at 184 to beat Adrian 27-19. Big
news also came out of Michigan this week as the Michigan
Intercollegiate Athletic Association announced it would be
sponsoring men’s wrestling as a conference sport starting next
year. That will put Olivet, Adrian, Alma and Trine -- which isn’t
in Michigan, but it’s in the conference -- as the four schools with
teams. The positive there? Well, since a conference sponsors the
sport, the opportunity to add new programs within is greater, so
let’s keep an eye out to see if Albion, Calvin, Hope, Kalamazoo and
St. Mary’s are looking to start teams in the future.
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