One thing that quarantine will do for you is introduce you to new shows. Wrestling photographer Tony Rotundo and one of my groomsmen, Nate Schy, both suggested I watch Letterkenny. To be fair, (TO BE FAIR!), I’ve been a bit busy during the wrestling season and my wife and I just started Yellowstone featuring my co-star in The Last Champion, Cole Hauser. Yes, I just called one of the most popular actors in the world right now, my co-star. Like anyone else cares, right? I shared the screen with him and you know what the credits of the movie said next to my name? HIMSELF! BOOYAH! I didn’t even have to fake it. So let’s pitter patter and get to Jason Bryant’s College Wrestling Wrap Sheet, a look back at five things from the world of college wrestling you may or may not know from January 16, 2022.
Pinning Pentz Powers Prairie Dwellers
The attempted alliteration always annoys when viable but voraciously verbose writers get carried away with building puns related to themes of a show they just discovered. What was I getting at? North Dakota State’s Owen Pentz got noticed last year at the NCAA championships when he pinned second-seeded Eric Schultz at 197 pounds. Pentz was at it again on Sunday, pinning third-ranked Stephen Buchanan in NDSU’s 22-14 win over Wyoming in Laramie. NDSU improved to 6-1.
Get the Guts, Get the Glory
I might be pushing these subheadings in a manner my high school yearbook teacher Dott Vandervort might mutter, “that’s so trite!” Sure enough, I’m here for trite, not for spite! Speaking of spite, Princeton coach Chris Ayres got himself into some spiteful Twitter discussions earlier this year after Pat Glory didn’t wrestle against Iowa because Spencer Lee wasn’t going to get the go. Glory’s only action prior to Sunday was his run through the Cliff Keen Invitational, which his top win was against Devin Schroder, who’s dropped to 14th in the rankings. Glory finally got himself a big W, picking up a 12-6 win over returning NCAA finalist Brandon Courtney in Princeton’s mildly stunning 20-18 upset over No. 6 Arizona State. Again, lineups being what they are, ASU forfeited 184 pounds and gave up six there, but again, you wrestle with what you got and football teams lose and fall in the rankings all the time if they have a key player out – unless the people doing the rankings are Gary Barta and the College Football Playoff rankings panel. Arizona State’s Jacori Teemer edged Quincy Monday 4-3 at 157 pounds.
Brady Berge Bounces Back
Hey, we got four B’s in there. You know what letter Brady Berge had on his mind on Sunday at Rec Hall? W. Berge registered a 5-1 win at 165 pounds over Rutgers’ Andrew Clark in his first match back in action. Berge had retired from competition in the offseason and joined Damion Hahn on staff at South Dakota State. Last week, Berge got the what ifs (or maybe it was Cael Sanderson who go the what ifs) and next thing you know, Brady puts his volunteer job on hold, heads back to Happy Valley and helps Penn State beat No. 16 Rutgers on ESPNU. Berge’s a past Junior world bronze medalist and a really solid individual from a really solid wrestling family down in Southern Minnesota.
In case you missed it, and I assure you, you did
While not officially the National Duals, Clackamas Community College won a third straight title at a dual meet tournament highlighting most of the nation’s top scholarship NJCAA programs at the NJCAA Coaches Duals. The past several years have seen the top NCJAA programs meet in Oklahoma at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M for their own “National Duals.” With 24 teams in the field, who’s going to really argue semantics – it was the best damned Junior College dual meet tournament in the land. Coach Josh Rhoden’s Cougars went 4-0, beating Triton 57-0, Northeastern (Colo.) 49-0, Iowa Central 24-11 and Western Wyoming 31-9. Iowa Central beat North Idaho 28-15 for third, while host NEO came back to finish fifth, beating Indian Hills 32-19. Clackamas went unbeaten in four weights throughout the weekend.
Borrelli Bowl would have been a better name
Central Michigan went 3-0 and beat American, CSU Bakersfield and Campbell in a quad in Mount Pleasant. Dubbed the Chippewa Challenge because all three visiting head coaches wrestled for Central Michigan and under head coach Tom Borrelli. Tom’s son Jason is currently at American, Scotti Sentes and his assistant Wynn Michalik are at Campbell and Luke Smith is at CSU Bakersfield. There’s even a traveling trophy. As expected, Central Michigan and Campbell were 2-0 heading into the third round of the quad. Campbell, ranked 25th this week, trailed 16-15 going into heavyweight when All-American Matt Stencel and NCAA qualifier Taye Ghadiali wrestled your typical 1-1 seven minute heavyweight match. Stencel drove Ghadiali out of bounds in sudden victory and drew a stall call that won the match and won the dual, prompting Earl Smith from InterMat to text me and ask me how I felt about the “walkoff stall call.” You suck Earl. Ok, you don’t. Your middle name is my last name. Go Cougars.
Bonus Points: Big Ten Stuff & Scheduling Hijinks
With a career record (including the redshirt year) of 47-53 coming into Sunday’s match with Minnesota’s fourth-ranked Brayton Lee, it might be safe to assume few really considered Wisconsin’s Garrett Model a threat to knock off the Gopher All-American. Model was 15-12 during his redshirt year, but has been under .500 in his three previous years as a starter in Madison. Model’s record is deceiving – according to WrestleStat, of Model’s 42 losses as a starter, 26 are to ranked wrestlers in the top 33. He also has those head scratchers, but enough about the losses, can we get to Garrett Model’s 10-5 win over Lee on Sunday that helped No. 10 Wisconsin beat No. 14 Minnesota 21-15! Yes, Model FINALLY broke through. Lee beat Model 11-7 last year. Good win. Good to see a guy who’s been battling and battling finally come through with that breakthrough win. … Iowa beat Illinois by a bunch, Gardner-Webb got its first SoCon win of the season, beating Bellarmine 24-15, Iowa State shut out a pair of NAIA opponents in a homecoming for Montana native Jarrett Degen and Oklahoma State beat Columbia 35-6 in Stillwater, which should have taken place in Morgantown, but West Virginia had to cancel. Columbia’s a laid back kinda school, so they said screw it, we’ll fly to you.
Wrote this one kind of early tonight, so there’s no excuse for bad grammar, typos or basic editing. Yes there is, it’s RAW, it’s how you guys like it! I don’t mean that in any other manner, by the way. To be fair, this is a rough sport, so sometimes, expect some tough dad jokes and questionable prose.
