What You May Have Missed Over the Weekend (1/27)

What a weekend it was! There were so many duals, especially on Friday night and Sunday afternoon, that you probably missed a couple of important results or notable happenings. It doesn’t help that many in the wrestling community also had their attention divided by NFL Conference Championship games on Sunday afternoon. That’s ok, we’re here to bring you everything you may have missed from the weekend in DI wrestling. Despite getting the horrible news that Cleveland State University intends on dropping their wrestling program after the completion of the 2025 season - less than 24 hours later, Josh Moore’s team combined to win 64-10 in two dual victories over Bloomsburg and Clarion. Such remarkable resiliency was shown by Moore’s wrestlers after getting such a terrible gut punch. Nebraska crushes Michigan. For the most part, Nebraska won the matches you’d expect them to win. The lone exception was Christopher Minto’s 7-2 win over #10 Beau Mantanona. You have to wonder if Minto is the guy going forward after two consecutive outings with highly ranked wins. Rider claimed a 23-19 win over in-state rival Princeton. Individually, Sammy Alvarez handed #8 Ty Whalen his first loss of the season. Columbia nearly knocks off Penn (24-20). The Lions were bolstered by a pair of upsets (both with bonus points) at 174 and 184 lbs, as Jack McGill majored #7 Nick Incontrera and #32 Nick Fine pinned #21 Max Hale. The Quakers held on to win, but Columbia has proven to be a tough out in year one under Donny Pritzlaff. Paniro Johnson’s big weekend. Iowa State’s 149 lber remained perfect at that weight class with a pair of top-15 wins defeating #13 Willie McDougald (Oklahoma) and #14 Carter Young (Oklahoma State). With Whalen’s loss, Johnson likely moves into the top-ten in tomorrow's rankings. The Dragons stay hot. Drexel posted a nice win last week downing Binghamton 23-10. They added two more wins this week by defeating Bucknell 20-13 and Rider 21-12. The front of the Drexel lineup was important with 125 lber Desmond Pleasant going 2-0, as did Jordan Soriano at 141. Former EIWA champion Mickey O’Malley is rounding into form with two wins at 197 lbs. Illinois cruises over Maryland. In a dual that featured a handful of matchups with rankings implications, Illinois got the win; however, Maryland got their shots in. Illinois held serve at 133 lbs with #4 Lucas Byrd over #11 Braxton Brown and #10 Luke Luffman downing #12 Seth Nevills at heavyweight. Maryland did get a slight upset at 184 lbs, with #13 Jaxon Smith defeating #10 Edmond Ruth. At 157 lbs, the Terps #6 Ethen Miller continues to impress with a 15-6 major decision over #22 Jason Kraisser. NC State holds off Pitt’s upperweights. A recurring theme for Pitt this season has been the ability of their upperweights to mount comebacks and preserve dual wins. Unfortunately for Keith Gavin’s team, having a big man like #4 Isaac Trumble on the other side of the mat stopped that trend. Trumble confirmed a Wolfpack win by majoring #13 Dayton Pitzer for the 22-13 win. NC State freshman #29 Koy Buesgens had a solid win at 149 lbs over #21 Finn Solomon. One of Pittsburgh’s key wins from the dual came at 174 lbs when #20 Luca Augustine outlasted #18 Matthew Singleton in tiebreakers. Perhaps the most unique subplot of the week occurred Friday night in Laramie as Wyoming’s Garrett Ricks fell to his brother Bridger (of Utah Valley) 4-3. While I’m sure the Ricks parent saw this matchup countless times in the living room or basement, it had to be nerve-wracking to watch it on a collegiate mat. Despite the loss, Garrett’s Cowboys were victorious, 25-10. Dual meets at Jersey Mike’s Arena are always electric and this week was no different. On Friday, the Rizzler (don’t ask) the top recruit from the Class of 2026, Bo Bassett, was on hand to watch the Scarlet Knights face top-ranked Penn State. The dual started promisingly enough for Rutgers as 125 lber #19 Dean Peterson handed #6 Luke Lilledahl his first collegiate loss. Unfortunately for the hosts, that was the highlight as Penn State reeled off nine straight wins to take the dual 35-3. A standout among standouts for the Nittany Lions was Josh Barr at 197 lbs - he wrestled circles around John Poznanski in a third period filled with action (from the Nittany Lion). Rutgers was able to rebound two days later and posted one of the most memorable wins of Scott Goodale’s career. Joey Olivieri (141), Conner Harer (157), and Jackson Turley (174) all won toss-up bouts, which left the dual in doubt heading into the heavyweight clash. A sudden victory takedown for #7 Yaraslau Slavikouski over #10 Luffman gave the Scarlet Knights a win on criteria. Illinois came into the weekend #11 in InterMat’s Dual Rankings, two slots ahead of Rutgers. Stiles wins in Oregon State’s loss. Despite his team suffering a 29-14 loss, Ethan Stiles was one of the stars of the night. In only his second match of the year at 149 lbs, Stiles knocked off #10 Jordan Williams, 5-1. Since this was a Pac-12 dual, these two will likely meet again before nationals. The top-five matchup between #3 Oklahoma State and #5 Northern Iowa lived up to the hype, and some. Northern Iowa jumped out to a 10-3 lead by winning three of the first four matches. One included an upset based on rankings; however, 141 lber Cael Happel maintained his dominance over Tagen Jamison. Oklahoma State saw the tide flip in their favor with a top-five upset at 157 lbs when #11 Caleb Fish defeated #4 Ryder Downey. At 184 lbs, Parker Keckeisen posted another major decision win over Dustin Plott in a 2024 NCAA finals rematch. In a toss-up match at 197 lbs, Luke Surber put the Cowboys in good position to grab the win with a 4-3 victory over Wyatt Voelker. As he typically does, Wyatt Hendrickson put the finishing touches on another OSU win by teching Lance Runyon. Moving on to Saturday - 133 lbs is shaping up to be the deepest weight in the SoCon, again. Two of the conference wrestlers are currently ranked and two others appeared in the Coaches Rankings. The highest ranked of the bunch is #26 Blake Boarman. Boarman got a measure of revenge on VMI’s Dyson Dunham, an NCAA qualifier who defeated Boarman in the 2023-24 regular season. Binghamton beat the two New England-based Ivy League schools with Carson Wagner (125), Carter Baer (165), and Brevin Cassella (174) all going 2-0. Wagner had the biggest win of the day for the Binghamton contingent when he downed #21 Diego Sotelo (Harvard), 10-3. Northern Illinois’ rally hands Ohio first MAC loss. Conference rivals NIU and OU squared off in a dual that saw Northern Illinois win four of the final five bouts to take a 21-20 victory. Bonus point wins by Blake West (125) and Markel Baker (133) set the stage for Jacob Brya at 141 lbs. Brya’s 12-0 major decision win over Kaden Jett was just enough for an NIU victory. The top-ranked 157 lber in the nation, Jacori Teemer, returned to the Iowa lineup after missing two-plus months due to a hamstring injury. His matchup with Sammy Sasso was deemed a toss-up since we didn’t have an idea how healthy Teemer would actually be. The Hawkeyes were also helped by upsets from their bookends, Joey Cruz and Ben Kueter. Ohio State’s biggest win came at 174 lbs as Carson Kharchla stayed perfect by handing Patrick Kennedy his first loss of the year. Northern Iowa wrapped up their Sooner State swing with a 26-13 win over Oklahoma. Highlights for the Panther Train included a second consecutive bonus point win for Julian Farber at 133 lbs and a second ranked win of the weekend for 149 lber Colin Realbuto. The Sooner struck at 141 lbs with #19 Mosha Schwartz knocking off Happel. Wyoming moved to 2-0 on the weekend crushing a pesky California Baptist squad 37-3. True freshman Eddie Neitenbach pinned a ranked opponent in #30 Nathan Haas at 184 lbs and #27 Gabe Willochell pinned California Baptist’s stud freshman Paul Kelly at 149 lbs. In Long Island’s 19-15 loss to Clarion, Anthony Ferrari made his LIU (and collegiate debut) with a 7-6 win over Brady Worthing at 165 lbs. Despite wrestling without their All-American heavyweight, Campbell managed to go 3-0 and win the Chippewa Challenge for a second straight year. This event pits the four schools (American, Campbell, CSU Bakersfield, Central Michigan) led by Central Michigan alums against each other in dual competition. Though the Camels swept the three duals, they were all highly competitive. Campbell’s 22-16 win over Central Michigan represented their biggest “blowout” of the day. Shannon Hanna (141) and Wynton Denkins (149) went 3-0 on the day for Campbell. In another showdown between two of the better teams in the MAC, Lock Haven prevailed over George Mason by two points. Two-time All-American Anthony Noto tallied his 100th career win by tech Geoff Whelan at 133 lbs. At 184 lbs, Colin Fegley knocked off the returning MAC champion #25 Malachi DuVall, 7-3. Michigan gets back on track. The Wolverines are in the midst of a tough stretch in the Big Ten. They headed into Sunday’s dual with Indiana losing three of their last four conference duals. After a rocky start, Michigan was able to bounce back with five straight wins between 141-174. One of the highlights in that streak includes Beau Mantanona rebounding from a Friday loss with a win over #14 Tyler Lillard. #9 Josh Heindselman finished the 22-13 win off with a narrow 2-1 win over #19 Jacob Bullock. Is Princeton back to full strength? The first half of the year generally saw Joe Dubuque’s team put kind of a patchwork lineup together due to a variety of injuries. The pieces seemed to all come together Sunday as the Tigers routed Columbia 34-3. Big wins for the Tigers include Eligh Rivera via major decision over Kai Owen at 141 lbs and #29 Kole Mulhauser over #32 Nick Fine at 184 lbs, also by major. The Citadel takes care of business. Quietly, the Bulldogs are now 6-3 on the year after two dominating wins over the last few days. They combined to beat Davidson and Presbyterian by a score of 77-7. You’d expect Ryan LeBlanc’s team to win both of these duals, but with the way they are wrestling, The Citadel could push Chattanooga this weekend. A beat-up Missouri team gets a ranked Big 12 win. A lot has been made here about the unfortunate run Missouri has had this year, injury-wise. Brian Smith’s team got one of their pieces back on Sunday as Logan Gioffre returned at 149 lbs and managed a one-point win over Sam Hillegas. At 165 lbs, Cam Steed nearly handed Peyton Hall his first loss of the year, but acquitted himself win in a 10-8 loss. This dual saw West Virginia with a costly injury as heavyweight Michael Wolfgram had to default out with a painful-looking leg injury. Similar to their Friday night dual with Northern Iowa, in Sunday’s dual with Iowa State, Oklahoma State found themselves in an early hole. The Cyclones struck with wins at four of the first five weights and held onto a 12-4 lead. That stretch saw Jacob Frost and Cody Chittum earn upset wins. The Cowboys responded by sweeping the final five weights and earning bonus points in four of those contests during a 27-12 victory. Bucknell earned a ranked win Sunday afternoon. The Bison took seven of ten matches from #24 Army West Point in a 21-13 win. One of the highlights for Bucknell was #22 Noah Mulvaney’s sudden victory win in a 13-10 shootout over #15 Gunner Filipowicz. Bucknell managed to get their hand raised in all four of the ranked versus ranked matches of the day. In one of the final duals of the weekend, Stanford grabbed their first-ever conference win, as a member of the ACC, when they downed Virginia 34-9. Of the nine points surrendered by Chris Ayres’ team, six came via forfeit at 125 lbs. In one of the bouts between ranked wrestlers, 2024 All-American Hunter Garvin edged the returning conference champion, Nick Hamilton, 4-1.

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What You May Have Missed Over the Weekend (1/27)

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