2021 Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational champion Mikey Labriola (Photo/Tony Rotundo; WrestlersAreWarriors.com)Starting this wrap a little differently, because six Big Ten teams were in action at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational on Friday and Saturday. We'll run through the team scores and then the weight-by-weight heat (or at least the results that interested me).
First, Team Scores:
1. Nebraska, 125
2. Ohio State, 104
3. Michigan, 94.5
T4. Northwestern, 91.5
6. Purdue, 85.5
*16. Minnesota, 34
*Minnesota sent an abbreviated lineup because of contact tracing protocols and lineup adjustments.
Nebraska won this again thanks to Mikey Labs winning at 174, Taylor Venz (184) and Eric Schultz (197) both making the finals, and Chad Red (141), Ridge Lovett (149) and Christian Lance (285) all taking third. Ohio State had four in the top three, led by Kaleb Romero's title at 184, and Dylan Ragusin won at 133 to lead Michigan.
The Big Ten had four individual champs: Ragusin, Labs, Romero and Ryan Deakin (157); six other finalists: Venz, Schultz, Purdue's Devin Schroder (125), Northwestern's Chris Cannon (133), Ohio State's Sammy Sasso (149) and Ethan Smith (174); and 10 more finish in the top four at their respective weights. Pretty, pretty good.
OK, weight-by-weight:
125: No huge surprises. Ohio State's Malik Heinselman, the 3-seed, lost to Oregon State's Brandon Kaylor, 5-3, in the quarterfinals. Kaylor went on to beat Michigan's Jack Medley for third. Medley lost to Princeton's Pat Glory in the semifinals, and Glory won it decisively, 13-0, over Schroder, who beat Kaylor, 8-6, in the other semifinal.
133: How about Dylan Ragusin? Went 4-0 and outscored those four opponents 39-13, including a 9-5 win over Cannon in the finals, thanks to a takedown and two backs in the final minute.
141: Chad Red and Parker Filius both reached the semifinals, but lost to Andrew Alirez and Clay Carlson, respectively. Red bounced back to take third, and notched wins over Ohio State's Dylan D'Emilio, Michigan's Cole Mattin and Oregon State's Grant Willits.
149: The highlight here was Yianni Diakomihalis beating Sammy Sasso, 6-2, in the finals. But Sasso ran through Oklahoma's Mitch Moore, 12-0, and Yahya Thomas, 6-4, to make the final. Ridge Lovett nearly beat Yianni in the semifinals, but wrestled back for third, beating Moore, Yahya and also Jaden Abas, 9-2, in the quarters.
157: Deakin was vintage Deakin this weekend: 5-0 with two pins and outscored his foes 34-6, including a win by fall over Purdue's Kendall Coleman in the semifinals and an impressive 8-3 victory over Quincy Monday in the final. Monday has picked off many Big Ten foes this year, first Iowa's Kaleb Young, 9-5, then over both Michigan's Will Lewan, 6-3, and Nebraska's Peyton Robb, 11-6, at CKLV. This weight is so fun.
165: Can the Big Ten still claim Evan Wick? He beat Cam Amine and Shane Griffith to take first here. The biggest revelation is Carson Kharchla as a certified Dude. Went 5-1 overall and took third. In his five wins, he put up 49 points and recorded a pin, a major and a technical fall. His only loss came to Griffith, 5-4 in the semifinals.
174: Mikey Labs topped Ethan Smith, 7-5 in overtime, to win this final. Labs was quite good this weekend, putting up 58 points in five matches — he scored 18 in two of his first three matches — and notched wins over Cade DeVos and Smith, who knocked off both Max Maylor and Gerrit Nijenhuis en route to the title match.
184: If we're going by the seeds, Romero technically pulled three upsets this weekend: 3-2 over Oklahoma's Darrin Roberts in the quarters, 6-3 over Wyoming's Tate Samuelson in the semifinals, then 7-3 over Venz in the finals. Not bad. Venz was pretty good this weekend, too, scoring two technical falls in three matches to reach the final.
197: Schultz ran through a gauntlet just to make the final here, beating Lou DePrez 2-0 in the quarters and Jake Woodley 6-2 in the semifinals. He ran into Wyoming's Stephen Buchanan in the final, and Buchanan won 7-3, a strong follow-up after he beat Michigan's Pat Brucki, 2-1, in the semifinals. Very quietly, Purdue's Thomas Penola won six in a row in the wrestlebacks to take third, which included: 3-1 overtime win over Jacob Cardenas, 7-5 over DePrez, then 6-5 over Woodley for third (plus an MFF win over Brucki).
285: Still reading? Bless you. Christian Lance beat Tate Orndorff, 9-4, for third, but old friend Gas Tank Gary took home heavyweight gold, winning three consecutive matches by the same 3-1 sudden victory result, first over Oklahoma's Josh Heindselman, then Wyoming's Brian Andrews in the quarters and Lance in the semifinals. Traub stormed out of the 10-spot to win CKLV, which isn't Big Ten related but still damn cool.
*Deep breath*
Ready for more? Cool. Let's go.
Iowa - Registered the 17th-straight win over Iowa State in the annual Cy-Hawk wrestling dual, winning on Sunday, 22-11, in a dual that had the following:
Am I missing anything?
Oh, yeah. The dual.
Iowa won six of 10 matches. Jaydin Eierman (141) and Alex Marinelli (165) recorded major decisions, Tony Cassioppi beat Sam Schuyler at heavyweight via stalling DQ, Max Murin and Ian Parker both made their season debuts and then Murin beat Parker 3-2 at 149 pounds (the refs tagged Murin for stalling twice in the final 30 seconds of the third period), and both Marcus Coleman (184) and Yonger Bastida (197) scored third-period takedowns to defeat Myles Wilson and Jacob Warner, respectively.
OK. I think that's everything. Cy-Hawk was awesome. Onward.
Maryland - The Terps are on the board! Collected their first two dual victories of the season on Saturday, 21-19 over Drexel, then 23-17 over Duke, marking their first back-to-back dual wins since 2017. Both duals were topsy-turvy. Maryland led Drexel 9-4, thanks to King Sandoval's first-period pin at 133, then trailed 19-9 after Drexel ripped off four-straight wins, then wins from Kyle Cochran (184), Jaron Smith (197) and Zach Schrader (285) helped the Terps rally for the dub. Nearly the same script unfolded against Duke, who led 17-12 after major decisions from the Finesilver boys (Josh at 149, Matt at 174), then Cochran, Smith and Schrader all won again for another come-from-behind victory.
Penn State - Gutted out a couple of wins this weekend, 20-16 over Penn on Friday, then 23-16 over Lehigh on Sunday. The Nittany Lions did not have Roman Bravo-Young, Aaron Brooks, or Greg Kerkvliet for their dual against Penn, but managed to win six matches. Carter Starocci (174) and Max Dean (197) both scored major decisions, Beau Bartlett (149) and Creighton Edsell (165) both won in overtime, and Donovan Ball, in lieu of Brooks, stepped in at 184 and beat Jesse Martinez, 11-4.
Against Lehigh, the Nittany Lions were again without Brooks and Kerkvliet, but RBY returned with a 19-7 major decision over Sheldon Seymour at 133; Nick Lee registered the 100th victory of his career with a 13-6 win over Connor McGonagle at 141; Edsell won another close match, 2-1 over Brian Meyer; and both Starocci and Dean scored bonus points again, Starocci with a 13-3 major decision, Dean with a first-period fall.
Michigan State - Defeated Lock Haven, 19-17, on Thursday, then handily beat Bucknell, 23-10, on Friday in their first duals of the season. Against Lock Haven, the Spartans trailed 17-5 after seven weights, then rallied on a pin from Layne Malczewski at 184 and back-to-back major decisions from Cam Caffey (197) and Brad Wilton (285). They didn't hold a lead until Wilton's match went final. Gutsy performance.
Against Bucknell, Michigan State won seven-of-10 and never trailed, and the dual was highlighted by Caleb Fish's 9-5 win over Zach Hartman at 165 pounds. Hartman led 5-1 after two takedowns in the first period and an escape in the second, then Fish took Hartman to his back near the edge for two plus a full set of back points, making it 7-5. He added a reversal in the third period to ice it. Caffey and Chase Saldate (157) added major decisions, and Julian Saldana bounced back from an overtime loss against Lock Haven's Luke Werner with an overtime win over Bucknell's Brandon Seidman. Gritty.
Rutgers- Pounded American, 41-3, on Friday. Won 9-of-10 bouts. Sebastian Rivera (141), Robert Kanniard (157), John Poznanski (184) and Greg Bulsak (197) all recorded technical falls, Mike Van Brill (149) recorded a pin and Big Boone McDermott (285) won by penalty disqualification. Scarlet Knights are now 9-0 this season, and still lead the nation in overall dual victories.
Wisconsin- Sent the starters to the Cougar Clash at SIUE and came away with a first-place team finish, if you're into that kind of thing. Seven Badger wrestlers took first, and there were really only a few notable results:
Illinois and Indiana did not compete this weekend.
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