Nov 19, 2018
Sure enough, the first full day with the new car, and I have to
take my wife’s Pontiac G6 down to Maturi Pavilion. Why? I don’t
quite yet know how to park our new monstrosity and her car fits in
better places.
Yup, it’s a Sunday in college wrestling and we’ve got some real fun
stuff to discuss. I’m Jason Bryant and this is Short Time Shots, a
look at the day’s happenings in college wrestling from around the
world. I don’t have any funny anecdotes to share today, other than
man, my fantasy football teams SUCK. Like bad. Horrible. Hashtag
#NoOneCaresAboutYourFantasyTeam.
I’ll start off at the dual I was at today as No. 4 Oklahoma State
pulled away from No. 13 Minnesota 23-9 in front of over 3,000 fans
at Maturi Pavilion. We saw two highly anticipated bouts and five
overall that featured both competitors in the national
rankings.
After a rather uneventful Cowboy win at 125 pounds, Daton Fix of
Oklahoma State knocked off Minnesota’s two-time All-American Ethan
Lizak 6-1 at 133 pounds. Lizak is every bit of 133 and this new
weight class should serve him well. Fix and Lizak got involved in
some fun scrambles, but a pair of takedowns AND a reversal helped
give the Cowboy redshirt freshman the W. I talk with Fix and a
bunch of Gophers on The Guillotine Grapevine, which you can also
find on the Mat Talk Podcast Network.
Bonus wins by Chandler Rogers, Jacobe Smith and Dakota Geer allowed
the Cowboys to pull ahead, even after a lost team point during the
133-pound bout. Minnesota did give their fans something to cheer
about as Gable Steveson’s first home dual was a big W as he used a
first period takedown and set of four nearfall points to top
All-American Derek White 8-2 at 285 pounds. Again, hear from Gable,
Eggum, Fix and Mitch McKee, who FINALLY beat Kaid Brock in a
folkstyle match on the latest edition of The Guillotine
Grapevine.
No. 2 Ohio State had no Myles Martin and no Kollin Moore, but the
Buckeyes had enough to beat Arizona State 22-17 in Tempe. Zahid
Valencia of ASU beat TeShan Campbell at 174 pounds, while Micah
Jordan registered a solid 18-8 major decision over Josh Maruca at
149 pounds.
Lineups weren’t exactly at 100 percent for either team, but No. 5
Michigan topped No. 6 Lehigh 21-13 at Crisler. At 174, Myles Amine
topped Jordan Kutler 6-4 at 174 … and really, that’s the only
matchup that really had ranked wrestlers. We had an injury default
with Malik Amine dropping a match to Jimmy Hoffman and Lehigh’s
Jordan Wood majoring Luke Ready at heavyweight. Other than that,
nothing really riveting, other than this match was supposed to be
wrestled on Friday, but snow moved it to Sunday.
Virginia Tech will limp home to Blacksburg after taking two losses
on the road this weekend. No. 25 Northwestern used a major decision
at heavyweight by Conan Jennings to knock off the 10th-ranked
Hokies 20-16 in Evanston. The key match there came at 149 pounds
where Shayne Oster upended Ryan Blees 8-7 in the tiebreaker.
No. 12 Nebraska topped No. 18 Wyoming 22-12 in Laramie. A couple of
interesting results from this dual on both sides. First, Zeke
Moisey was upended by Wyoming’s Cole Verner at 125, then Tucker
Sjomeling, who was just beaten the other night by Jens Lantz of
Wisconsin, well Sjomeling beats All-American Montorie Bridges
13-11. Eye-Yeye-EYE. Branson Ashworth beat Nebraska’s Isaiah White
2-0. Nebraska picked up seven wins.
No. 17 Wisconsin had redshirt freshman heavyweight Trent Hillger
play hero on two occasions on Sunday. First against Princeton,
Hillger earned a first period technical fall to push the Badgers
past the Tigers 22-18. A few hours later, an overtime win over Tate
Orndorff lifted Wisconsin past No. 21 Utah Valley 22-17.
We’ll get to the tournaments in a sec, but we had some D3 action to
get around to. John Carroll went 5-0 as it hosted the JCU Duals
along with D2, D3 and NAIA teams. The Blue Streaks, and we don’t
mean Martin Lawrence, beat Urbana, Waynesburg, Lourdes,
Pitt-Bradford and Penn State … Behrend. Speaking of Urbana, the
first-year Division II program earned its first win in school
history by defeating another first-year program, Pitt-Bradford.
Trevor Hankins’ technical fall at 184 pounds clinched the dual for
the Blue Knights, who are coached by Seton Hill alum Brett
Smith.
Ok, tournament time and that’s where top-ranked Penn State rolled.
One media professional, who shall remain nameless, told me earlier
on Sunday that he appreciates how Penn State helps move a
tournament along. Yeah, if Brock Lesnar welcomes people to suplex
city, then Penn State wrestling .. wait, Pittsburgh is already
calling itself Pinzburgh this year .. hey Penn State faithful,
let’s come up with some type of name for Penn State that has some
type of geographical marker like “city” or “town” or I dunno, maybe
my friend Nate Schy, the Mayor of Bringtown, can come up with
something.
So Penn State won the tournament for a third straight year, scored
192 points and had EIGHT champions. The only weights they didn’t
win were 125 and 149. Drexel was second with 109.5 points and five
runners-up.
Roman Bravo-Young, Nick Lee, Jason Nolf, Vincenzo Joseph, Mark
Hall, Shakur Rasheed, Bo Nickal and Anthony Cassar. Two things
MIGHT have gotten sorted out with the Penn State lineup. Brady
Berge beat Jared Verkleeren at 149 pounds in a tight one before
Berge would medically forfeit the finals. Cassar beat Nick Nevills
convincingly in the semis at 285. I remember my first episode of
Short Time, “depth is never a bad thing.”
There wasn’t much in the way of ranked roadblocks in the finals,
but Cassar had a solid major decision win over Drexel’s Joey
Goodhart - Lancaster kid! - in the finals.
Lock Haven won the Black Knight Invitational. THE BLACK KNIGHT
ALWAYS TRIUMPHS! NC State didn’t see much in the way of super crazy
battles at the Wolfpack open, but Tariq Wilson did beat Zach
Sherman of North Carolina in the finals at 133.
Best final of the New York State Intercollegiate championships was
at heavyweight, where a pair of Division III All-Americans mixed it
up. It was Oneonta State’s James Bethel who came away with the
title, beating Ithaca’s Jake O’Brien 5-1. Bethel was a D3 runner-up
a year ago.
North Dakota State won five titles at the Roadrunner Open. Stanford
freshman Shane Griffith, who’s still redshirting, was impressive in
winning a title at 165 pounds. Menlo’s Terrill Sidner won at 149
pounds, beating high school phenom Jaden Abas and Junior World
teamer Peyton Omania of Michigan State on the way to the title.
The Missouri Valley Open took place in Marshall, Missouri for the
women on Sunday. Marshall, as we know, is a nice community. There
were plenty of notables.
Sarah Allen of the University of the Cumberlands topped Wayland
Baptist’s Junior world medalist Asia Ray with a second-period fall
at 101. McKendree’s Felicity Taylor registered a solid title and a
fall over Makayla Welch of King to win the gold at 116 pounds.
Brenda Reyna of McKendree topped returning WCWA champion Andribeth
Rivera of Campbellsville by fall to claim top honors at 130. Rivera
had beaten Ali Howk in the semis, while Reyna topped Arian Carpio
of Sunkist in her semi. Junior world champion Maya Nelson mixed it
up with the college kids as she topped fellow Colorado native
Ashlynn Ortega of King 11-1 in the finals. Ortega topped NYCRTC’s
Bri Csontos in the semifinals there.
Anna Naylor of the University of the Cumberlands won a 7-7 criteria
final over McKendree’s Jasmine Bailey at 155, while veteran Brandy
Lowe, who seems to have been around forever, gave McKendree another
title with an 8-2 win over Alex Castillo of Campbellsville in the
finals at 191.
As always, all those scores and more at the nation’s most
comprehensive college wrestling scoreboard at
almanac.mattalkonline.com. Contribute and say thanks with a small
monthly contribution at mattalkonline.com/jointheteam.
The kids are off from school this week. We will have shakeups in
the rankings this week with the coaches poll and I’m going to go
watch Spaceballs!
I’d like to thank you for spending your time with me, because
you’ve always got time for Short Time.
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