By Denny Diehl
InterMat Correspondent
When a tournament attracts 32 Division I teams (almost 40% of all schools at the NCAA Championships) it’s possible to reach selective conclusions based on individual and team performances. We’ll attempt to postulate on a few:
Minnesota is for real, in its new position as the second-ranked team in the nation. But with just two Top Five grapplers and 2-3 more in the Top Ten, they’ll need more evidence of their youthful rebuilding before they can challenge Oklahoma State at NCAAs (their dual may well be interesting).
Missouri likewise shows exceptional balance but has just two top 14 men”and Cornell, which boasts five Top 10 men, finished 61 points behind the Gophers and 18 behind the Tigers.
There were very few shake-ups of individual ratings, with true freshman Troy Nickerson of Cornell still consistently tough without any tests vs. Top Five wrestlers”something he won’t be able to correct until National Duals. Super freshman Gregor Gillespie discovered some kryptonite in his bag of tricks, soon to topple from his lofty #3 perch at 149 (see highlights).
Lady Luck”in the presence of random injuries”could affect the coming weeks, with Lehigh’s Troy Letters defaulting in Round 2 and Cornell’s Jerry Rinaldi another Top Five man among the half a dozen banged-up grapplers for these two EIWA powers alone.
Quick highlights of the finals, in weight class order, although tourney hosts Tom Shifflet and Keith Shields chose a more entertaining juggling of the sequence:
125: Nickerson didn’t figure to have much trouble with 15-5 Charles Sportelli of Kent State and motored to a 13-5 major with six assorted takedowns and 2:10 time edge. A mix of #12 through 20’s may play musical chairs in the lower standings.
133: Edinboro’s Shawn Bunch had another fine tourney, beating #3 Mack Reiter 8-5 on three takedowns to the Gopher’s reversal and escapes. Reiter may have slowed some by a fierce first period slam that was ruled legal but used up all but 0:05 of his injury time. Matt Keller (UTC) was en route to a great tourney (6-4; 2 WBFs) before getting nipped 2-1 by Reiter in the semis, then up-ended 6-4 by Ohio State’s 4th-place Reece Humphrey and settled for 5th.
141: Lehigh’s #3 Cory Cooperman ran roughshod into the finals (12-5; 2 WBFs; 13-4 over Kevin Artis who beat Michael Keefe 11-10), then raised his career mark vs. Pitt’s Ron Tarquinio to 3-0 with a 3-1 sudden victory win. The two know how to counter each other”and did”on six different penetrations, with Coop nailing a sudden arm drag to a low shot to score with just 0:02 left in s.v. “Tark” bumped off Top 7 David Hoffman (Va Tech) 8-4 in the quarters and edged Sean Markey (Citadel) in the semis.
149: J Jaggers of Ohio State made a clear bid to settle his freshman status in the Top 20 while benefiting from wrestling just his 3rd bout while defeating Gillespie who was in bout five. The Buckeye missed the pigtails and scouted the Scot due to receipt of a quarterfinal forfeit win over the banged-up Keith Dickey (Cornell). He duplicated LU’s Matt Ciasulli (1st pd shrug TD and ride-out) and then rode out again in the second; Gillespie finally scored with 0:30 left and came close to his famous tilts but ran out of time. Unheralded Daniel Elliott of a surprisingly tough Gardner-Webb team added insult to injury with a 10-4 win over Gillespie before placing 4th over Lock Haven’t Josh Medina.
But the champion in a finals battle of freshmen was Minnesota’s Dustin Schlatter, in a 1-0 sleeper highlighted only by the lack of stall calls. The Gopher rode out the second and chose neutral for the win.
157: Brother C.P. Schlatter found tougher sledding against Cornell 3-time All-American Dustin Manotti (8, 4, 6), who won 4-1 on an extremely low single leg shot in the first, plus an escape and 1:48 riding time.
165: In a super finale, Missouri’s #4 senior Matt Pell never trailed but was challenged hard by Cornell soph Steve Anceravage. It was 3-3 after one period and 9-6 Pell early in the third but the Tiger finished with a takedown to win 12-7. It was Pell who shut out Minnesota’s Matt Nagel 4-0 in the semis (four romps and a default win in going 5-1) and bad luck which did in LU’s Letters, whose return is uncertain.
174: The tournament’s only two alumni entries both placed “UNCG’s Tyler Shovlin (Cornell grad) finished 6th place and Missouri grad Tyrone Woodley reached the finals, where he elected not to face current Tiger junior Ben Askren. The collegiate scene was affected when Gopher soph Gabe Dretsch was bumped in the wrestle-backs where he beat former All-American Travis Frick, 3-1, for third place in a bid to crack the Top 10.
184: Roger Kish of Minnesota beat #11 Alex Camargo (Kent St) 5-3 in the semis, then edged Virginia Tech redshirt Steve Borja, 5-3, in the finals on the strength of two takedowns. Camargo earned a third.
197: In a sensational see-saw final NC State freshman Ryan Goodman led 3-0 on a second period takedown but gave up a reversal and takedown to #9 Jerry Rinaldi of Cornell; then led 5-4 entering the last period. In the ride-out The Big Red escaped in 0:10 but Goodman went one up on him by reversing with 0:10 left in the second tie-breaker period. Yet Rinaldi stunned him by reversing with 0:03 left to win, 8-7. Goodman lived and died by the close-bout sword, reversing Lehigh’s Matt Cassidy just seconds after getting taken down with 0:30 left (7-6 win). He then beat Maryland redshirt Hudson Taylor 10-8 in sudden victory. Taylor (who survived a 7-6 nailbiter consolations ending in a default in 6:50 by LU’s Paul Weibel) beat Mizzoo’s Max Askren for third.
285: Cole Konrad lived up to his big billing (literally) with five pins in six wins to claim the Outstanding Wrestler Award, including four of them under 3:10″it was over in 1:28 vs. Navy’s 8th-ranked Tanner Garrett, who has been accepted into the U.S. Navy’s Seal program.
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