November 1, 2021
Kicking Off
While the California Community Colleges start in the fall and the NAIA began a week ago, many point to November 1 as the official start of college wrestling season. NCAA Division I competition saw two ranked teams in action, No. 12 North Carolina and No. 22 Wisconsin. Carolina hosted Division II Queens University of Charlotte and returning NAIA national champion Life. Wisconsin hosted Buffalo from the MAC.
As expected, the Tar Heels lost just one individual match on the day, but as expected, Life didn’t just roll over despite losing nine of ten matches. When looking for the points Life did score, wrestling fans ran to the Google machine to find out who Life 197-pounder Zane Lanham is. Lanham pinned Max Shaw, who was ranked 23rd by InterMat, to give the Running Eagles (yes, that is their nickname) their only win in the dual. Lanham finished third last year at the NAIA championships at 197 after coming in as the No. 4 seed. Life didn’t waste any time updating the website as the fall is now the featured image on Lanham’s bio page.
Creating an instant local rivalry in match one
St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa began its foray into wrestling with a bang. The Bees, coached by Waldorf alum Bo Bettinson, beat Augustana of nearby Rock Island, Illinois 24-23 in the school’s first-ever dual meet. For those unfamiliar with the geography of the region, Rock Island and Davenport are two of the cities that form the “Quad Cities” region of Iowa and Illinois. Bettendorf on the Iowa side and Moline on the Illinois side fill out the quad, although Illinois’ East Moline does lay claim to being one of the four, but that’s not important right now. What Augustana and St. Ambrose did was create an instant rivalry, one that even Quad Cities Times wrestling reporter Steve Batterson noted immediately in his recap for the local print media.
Strong debuts
One of the most notable things that came out of Wisconsin’s 30-3 win over Buffalo wasn’t the debut of much-ballyhooed freshman Braxton Amos, rather the energy and dominance of freshman Dean Hamiti. The Illinois native carved out an 18-5 major decision at 165 pounds, which ignited (not literally) the Badger crowd in Madison. While the Badgers are sure to miss Evan Wick at the weight, Hamiti’s got an excitability factor Badger Nation is sure to enjoy. Not to be outdone, Wisconsin updated Hamiti’s profile with the post-match flex, too.
Amos defeated Wisconsin native Sam Mitchell 8-2 at 197 pounds, while Kent State transfer Andrew McNally scored a major decision at 174 pounds and Joey Zargo topped veteran Ben Freeman at 141 pounds in the other two eye-opening debuts in the dual.
Big Blue Wins Big
Millikin University opened up CCIW conference competition with a sizable 47-6 win over Elmhurst. The Big Blue (Millikin’s nickname) earned eight of their nine wins via bonus, including six falls. Braden Birt, the champion at last year’s NWCA Division III Championship, picked up a fall in 51 seconds, while Micah Downs was quicker, picking up the dual’s fastest fall at 45 seconds. In addition to Birt, the dual did feature another returning champion from last year’s NWCA championship, Elmhurst 141-pounder Jimmy McAuliffe. He pinned Millikin’s D.J. Millet in 2:49. Watch for Birt and McAuliffe to make championship runs in Cedar Rapids this year when the NCAA Division III Championship finally gets back on the mat.
Wisconsin schools love the ECM
Last year’s new wrestling term to many was the extra countable match, or ECM. The ECMs took the place of the open tournament for many schools. In Division III, the ECM has been a way of life for many a school, most notably by schools in the Northeast. In UW-Eau Claire’s 29-16 win over UW-Stevens Point, both Wisconsin schools made it abundantly clear they intend to be using the ECM to its fullest potential in the Midwest. The dual featured 10 bouts, with one of those coming via a forfeit – oddly to the nation’s top 133-pounder Matt Berlin of Stevens Point. There were 10 extra countable matches.
