Big Ten Recap: Champions Crowned at Early Season Open Tournaments

This weekend there was a heavy presence of open tournaments with some big wins. A number of Big Ten teams crowned champions at several of them to get their seasons started. 

Byrd is the Word: Illinois claims blowout wins and 5 titles at Journeymen
Ladies and gents, Luca Byrd is back, and he looks…controlled. Over the weekend he went undefeated in his return to the mat with a win over Cornell’s Brett Ungar in the finals. Kannon Webster joined Byrd in the winner’s circle. He defeated Jaden Pepe (Harvard), Alex Nini (Rutgers) and Cross Wasiliewski (Penn) in the finals at 149. The day prior to the individual tournament, Illinois defeated Binghamton and Arizona State, 30-10 and 37-6, respectively.

Teemer Makes Hawkeye Debut: Iowa dominant in win over Stanford
Top-ranked Jacori Teemer didn’t make the trip to Oregon State a week, but he definitely wasn’t missing his first chance to put on a show for his new home crowd as Iowa hosted a red-hot Stanford that was coming off an upset win over the Hawkeye’s in-state rival Iowa State Cyclones. But Carver Hawkeye isn’t a friendly place to visit and the hosting black and yellow put on a great show with all their new toys at 149 with Kyle Parco, 157 with Teemer and 197 with Stephen Buchanan. However, it wasn’t all good results. At 133, Tyler Knox defeated returning NCAA finalist Gabe Ayala, 15-10. Knox moved from #23 to #12 while Ayala dropped to #9 from #7.

Gophers Bring Home 5 Titles at Mountaineer Invite 
Tyler Wells had a last second win at 133 over Virginia Tech’s Connor McGonagle. With less than 10 seconds on the clock, Wells score the winning takedown to win the title. Along with Wells, the Gophers had Vance VomBaur (141), Tommy Askey (157), Max McEnelly (184) and Isaiah Salazar (197) also took home titles. 

Purdue claims 1 title, Maryland claims 2 at Tiger Style Invite
Despite having a few finalist, #4 Matt Ramos was the lone champion for Purdue at the Tiger Style Invite. Ramos scored four technical falls and gave up a combined four points on his way to the 125-pound title. 

Maryland came away with titles as Ethen Miller (157) and Seth Nevills (285) were victorious. Miller notably defeated #24 Matty Bianchi and #18 Joey Blaze in the semis and finals, respectively. Nevills took the dominant path on his way to the final with a pair of pins before getting the sudden victory win of Missouri’s Seth Nitzel to claim the title.

The brunt of Big Ten teams took the trip to the Michigan State Open. Check out the full recap from the tournament here.