South Dakota State 197 lber Tanner Sloan (photo courtesy of Sam Janicki; SJanickiPhoto.com) I know it doesn’t feel that way when you’re cutting weight over the holidays or going through brutal workouts, but the wrestling season really flies by. For such a long season, compared to other collegiate sports, you blink and it’s mid-January. It sounds crazy to think, but a month from now we’ll be wrapping up the regular season.
That’s why we should celebrate and focus on the now. This past weekend was another great couple of days of action on the collegiate wrestling front. As the year progresses, we are seeing seemingly strong teams show weaknesses, while new powers are emerging. Individually, each weight class is taking form, too. Early-season rankings rely on last year’s results, but with two and a half months' worth of action, plenty of shifting has taken place and will continue to do so.
So, without any further delay, here are seven big stories from the week in college wrestling.
125 is a mess
At one point or another, throughout the course of a four-plus month season, each weight class has that one week, where everyone loses. Well, not everyone, but it just seems that way. For the better part of the year, 141 has been that weight and a weekly basis. That bracket seems to have leveled out and starts to make sense, a bit (for now).
That gave way to 125 lbs going nuts this weekend. What we know is that Spencer Lee (Iowa) and Patrick Glory (Princeton) remain perfect. Both had high-quality wins over the past few days, with Lee pinning #3 Michael DeAugustino (Northwestern) and Glory downing fellow national runner-up Brandon Courtney (Arizona State) on Sunday.
After those two, good luck making sense of the weight. Killian Cardinale (West Virginia) is the only other undefeated wrestler at this weight. Cardinale stretched his record to 6-0, but has yet to face a ranked foe.
Number’s three through six all suffered at least one loss on the weekend with DeAugustino, Patrick McKee (Minnesota), Eric Barnett (Wisconsin), and Courtney all falling. Those three wrestlers have a combined seven NCAA All-American finishes under their proverbial belts.
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