BAKU, Azerbaijan -- A day after the U.S. went 2-7 at the Cadet World Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan on the event's opening day, Zain Retherford (Benton, Pa.) gave the U.S. its first medal -- in the form of gold -- on Wednesday.

Retherford, a Junior National freestyle champion in Fargo, went 4-0 on Wednesday to claim the gold medal at 63 kilos. In the gold-medal match he defeated Russia's Supian Burmagomedov 0-1, 4-3, 2-1. His other victories came over Hossein Rouzbehmaleh of Iran, Sapar Kubandykov of Kyrgyzstan, and Ilyas Zhumay of Kazakhstan.

Last year Adam Coon claimed a gold medal at the Cadet World Championships in freestyle at 100 kilos.

Two other U.S. wrestlers, Chance Marsteller (76 kilos) and Garrett Ryan (100 kilos), placed fifth in the competition on Wednesday.

Marsteller, the nation's No. 1 overall junior, won his first two matches, but was injured in his semifinal loss to Ruslan Ruchko of Ukraine. He was forced to default out of the competition.

Ryan lost in the second round to Georgy Gogaev of Russia, but was pulled back into the repechage after Gogaev reached the gold-medal match. Ryan pinned Beka Kachetelidze of Georgia in his first repechange, but dropped his bronze-medal match to Yunus Dede of Turkey 4-1, 0-4, 1-2.

Joey McKenna (54 kilos) won his first two matches to reach the quarterfinals before losing by injury default to Zokir Mansurov of Uzbekistan. McKenna was eliminated when Mansurov lost in the semifinals.

Mitchell McKee (46 kilos) dropped his opening match and was eliminated.

Watch Zain Retherford's gold-medal match ...