Levi Mele won his second title at 125 lbs. in as many weeks and improved to 10-0 on the season with four wins at the Keystone Classic. Mele, who had three pins at last week's Michigan State Open, added two more falls Sunday en route to the finals.
Lee Munster (second, 174), Mike McMullan (second, heavyweight), Jameson Oster (third, 133), Kaleb Friedley (third, 149), Pierce Harger (fourth, 165), Alex Polizzi (fourth 197), Dylan Marriott (fifth, 157), Pat Greco (fifth, 141), Colin Shober (sixth, 141), Kevin Bialka (sixth, 165) and John Schoen (sixth, 197) also placed Sunday.
"Our team is improving each time we compete," Northwestern head coach Drew Pariano said. " We are perfectionists and the results are not always to our liking, but if we battle and fight for points, the guys can feel good about their effort."
A weight-by-weight recap of Northwestern's results can be found below:
125
Top-seeded Levi Mele won three-straight bouts with bonus points to reach the finals. Mele opened up with a 13-0 major decision over Rider's Mark Maestrey, pinned Boston University's Ryan Dowd in 6:47 and had another fall in 1:46 against Harvard's Joseph Barbato. Mele met No. 2 seed Garret Frey from Princeton in the finals and he took home his second tournament title in as many weeks, defeating Frey 8-3.
133
Two Northwestern wrestlers competed at 133 lbs. John Coukos faced top-seeded (and No. 15 in the country) Bryan Ortenzio from Penn in the opening round and fell 9-1. He then met his own teammate, Jameson Oster in the consolation bracket and Oster pinned Coukos in 2:01 to stay alive in the wrestlebacks.
Oster opened the day against No. 2 seed (and 20th ranked) Steven Keith and fell 9-0. After his bout against Coukous, he upset three seeded wrestlers to place third. Oster pinned No. 6 seed Chris Johnson from Appalachian State in 4:16, defeated Princeton's No. 4 Christopher Perez 11-5 and pinned Duke's No. 3 Brandon Gambucci in 2:09 in the third-place bout.
141
Colin Shober and Pet Greco both wrestled at 141 lbs. for Northwestern and reached the consolation semifinals. Shober was the No. 5 seed and edged Boston University's Tyler Scotton 7-6 in his first match before falling to No. 4 seed Adam Krop (Princeton), 3-1. Shober then had a 12-2 major decision over Acton Pifer from Appalachian State, defeated VMI's Zeb Stewart 10-3 and faced No. 2 seed Mike Kessler (Appalachian State) in the consolation semifinals. Kessler won 4-0, bouncing Shober to the fifth place match against his teammate and Greco took fifth due to a medical forfeit for Shober.
Greco dropped his opening round match 7-3 to Kessler but won four-straight bouts, including one in sudden victory, to reach the consolation semifinals. Greco defeated Duke's Chris Mullin 14-12, Harvard's Alexis Wagener in a 12-3 major decision, Penn's No. 6 seed Mark Pinero 5-2 and Princeton's Robert Shepherd 10-8 in sudden victory. In the consolation semifinals Greco was pinned in 3:52 by Kropp.
149
Kaleb Friedley earned the top seed at 149 and pinned his first two opponents in less than a minute. He opened the day pinning VMI's Luke Todd in 45 seconds and stuck Princeton's Zachary Bintliff in 48 seconds. Friedley then met No. 4 seed Stephen Robertson from Penn and was edged 3-2 in the semifinals. In the consolation semifinals Friedley defeated Harvard's No. 3 Paul Liguori 10-5 and beat American's No. 6 seed Kevin Tao 5-4 to finish third.
157
Dylan Marriott represented NU at 157 lbs. and wrestled his way back to a fifth place finish. He began with a 5-0 loss to No. 2 seed Giuseppi Lanzi from Brown, but won three-straight for a rematch with Lanzi in the consolation semifinals. Marriott registered a 20-2 tech fall over Matt Rubin (Boston University), a 13-4 major decision over Ted Gottwald (VMI) and 6-4 decision over Frank Crocco (Rider) before facing Lanzi again. Marriott fell 4-0 and placed fifth as Boston's No. 4 Nick Tourville forfeited the fifth-place match.
165
Kevin Bialka and Pierce Harger both wrestled their way to the semifinals. Second-seeded Harger won his first three bounds, including two with pins in the first period and a major decision, before meeting No. 3 seed Lorenzo Thomas from Penn in the semis. Harger narrowly missed a chance to wrestle in the finals as Thomas emerged with the 9-8 victory. In the wrestlebacks, Harger needed extra time to defeat Boston's No. 4 Kyle Czarnecki 5-2 in the second sudden victory to reach the third place bout and took fourth, falling 5-4 to Rider's No. 6 James Brundage.
Fifth-seeded Bialka defeated Zachary Agostino (Penn) by a 12-2 major decision and upset No. 4 seed Kyle Czarneck (Boston) 5-3, but fell 8-2 to top-seeded (and No. 19 in the country) Kyle Blevins from Appalachian State. Bialka fell 10-5 to Brundage in the consolation semifinals and finished sixth with a medical forfeit.
174
Lee Munster and Robert Kellogg competed at 174 lbs. Munster, the No. 2 seed, won three-straight bouts to earn a spot in the finals. He shut out Duke's Randy Roden 7-0 in the first round, majored Appalachian State's Jake Johnson 9-1 and defeated No. 3 seed Ian Korb from Penn 10-6. In the finals, Munster met top-seeded (No. 18) Jimmy Resnick from Rider. Munster took a 2-0 lead at the end of the first period but Resnick had a quick escape and takedown in the second. Munster added an escape of his own to tie the score at 3-3 heading into the third period. He began the final period down and added another escape to take the 4-3 lead, but Resnick responded with a takedown. With riding time not a factor, Munster added one last escape to end the period and tie the match 5-5 at the end of regulation, sending the match to sudden victory. Munster then dropped his first match of the day as Resnick took him down 22 seconds into sudden victory.
Kellogg met Brown's Ricky McDonald in the first round and fell 4-2. He then dropped his second match of the day, falling 8-3 to Appalachian State's Nick Vetell.
184
Marcus Shrewsbury represented NU at 184 lbs. and dropped two matches against seeded wrestlers. He met No. 6 Daniel Santoro from Princeton first and fell 4-1 and then faced No. 4 seed Tom Barreiro from American and was eliminated from competition with a 6-2 decision.
197
Northwestern had two seeded wrestlers at 197 lbs. with John Schoen and Alex Polizzi. Schoen was seeded second and opened the day with a 4-3 decision over Princeton's Kurt Brendel. Schoen missed a chance at the finals as No. 3 seed Sterling Hecox (Brown) won 5-3 in the semifinals. He dropped his final two matches of the day to place sixth.
No. 5 seed Alex Polizzi began the day pinning No. 4 seed James Fox from Harvard in 4:34 to meet top-seeded (No. 15) John Hall from Boston in the semis. Polizzi dropped the semifinal match 8-2, but wrestled his way back to fourth, pinning Rider's No. 6 Donald McNeil in 3:21 in the consolation semis, but fell 8-5 to Harvard's No. 4 seed James Fox in the third place bout.
Hwt
Top-seeded Mike McMullan dominated his opponents in his first three matches with a tech fall and two pins. He began with a 17-0 shutout of Boston's Brad Castronovo, pinned Appalachian State's Brock Durgee in 5:50 and had a fall in 2:18 against No. 5 seed Evan Craig from Rider to meet Boston's No. 3 Kevin Innis in the finals. After a scoreless first period, McMullan got on the board first with an escape just six seconds into the second. Innis then took down McMullan to go up 2-1 but McMullan escaped again to tie the score at 2-2 heading into the third. Innis started the third period down and added another escape for the 3-2 lead. McMullan attempted a last-second takedown but Innis blocked it to hold on for the 3-2 lead as McMullan finished second.
NU junior Jason Welch (157 lbs.) competes in the 46th annual NWCA All-Star Classic tomorrow at the Wells Fargo Arena in Tempe, Ariz. The annual exhibition begins at 8:30 p.m. CT. As a team, Northwestern is off from competition until the NU Duals on Dec. 11. The Wildcats meet SIUE at 3 p.m. and Indianapolis at 5 p.m. in their first true home duals of the season at Welsh-Ryan Arena.
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