Jason Bryant’s College Wrestling Wrap Sheet is a look at five topics from the world of college wrestling with highlights, things you know and things you don’t. Here’s the five for November 13, 2021.
Prologue: After one week of college wrestling being back to mostly normal, the audible Short Time Shots will be too freaking long to complete during the weekends and when I travel, so that will be a weekday thing, hitting up the notable things during the weekdays, since most podcast listeners hit them up away from the weekend. Monday will have a kind of “Super Shots” episode with some of the weekend’s bigger moments, because there’s quite frankly more than five things worth talking about across all divisions.
But here’s the Wrap for Saturday, November 13.
Penn State scary at Spooky Nook
Spooky Nook wasn’t around when I lived in the 717 and specifically when I worked for the NWCA in Manheim, but it’s been a wrestling destination born out of necessity. Frank Popolizio had Penn State wrestle Sacred Heart and Oregon State at Spook Nook, a multi-sport complex, and the results, even without the Nittany Lions’ optimal lineup, was scary. The second-ranked team in the nation, as expected, blasted Sacred Heart 47-3 and Oregon State 32-7. None of Penn State’s ranked wrestlers lost and 14 of the 17 wins were by bonus. There was one top-10 matchup, depending on your preference in rankings and that saw returning NCAA champion Nick Lee beat No. 10 Grant Willits 11-4. Fifth-ranked Greg Kerkvleit teched Gas Tank Gary Traub 16-0 in one of the other bouts of intrigue.
Something noticeable in the Davidson Quad … and it was Davidson
Rutgers improved to 6-0 on the young season by sweeping Clarion, Chattanooga and Davidson in a quad hosted by Davidson. But the Scarlet Knights weren’t the story here, at least not in my estimation, it was the host Wildcats, who went 0-3. What, what? Yes, Davidson, the perennial doormat of the Southern Conference, the school known for Steph Curry, roundball and being hard to get into, did something notable. They split 5-5 with Chattanooga with the difference coming at 125 pounds where UTC’s Fabian Gutierrez got a fall, which helped lift Chattanooga to the 18-16 victory. Chattanooga improved to 30-0 all-time against the Wildcats, but look at this a little closer. Davidson has NEVER beaten Chattanooga and the average margin of victory, dating back to 1988 has been 38.5 points and there’s been eight shutouts. Average score: 42.6-4.1. Davidson had never scored more than NINE points in any single dual and that only happened four times. It was a combination of things, but Andy Lausier and his staff are slowly, but surely, making this a respectable program.
Cowboys roll, but Griffith solid
Sixth-ranked Oklahoma State went into Stanford on Saturday afternoon and dispensed with the 24th-ranked team in the nation, Stanford. Looking at things strictly from a wrestling standpoint, Oklahoma State was expected to win, didn’t look super great overall, but still did Oklahoma State things. The win here though was for the sport, as OSU head coach John Smith was open about his feelings about the Stanford administration in the wake of last year’s debacle that saw the prestigious academic institution south of San Francisco announce it was dropping 11 sports, only to reverse direction after some creative fundraising, spearheaded by wrestling backers. Returning national champion Shane Griffith got right to work, topping All-American Travis Wittlake 4-0 at 165 pounds. Stanford’s only other win came at 149 pounds as All-American Jaden Abas topped Kaden Gfeller 15-6. Mr. Appointment Viewing, A.J. Ferrari majored Nick Stemmet at 197 pounds. Curious as to what type of trash was being talked in that IG DM after the bout.
Yo Adrian, Wisconsin schools rip it up
Adrian College in Adrian, Michigan hosted an eight-team dual event where four schools from Wisconsin took on four schools from the Central Region in Division III. It was a pretty successful trip for the WIAC schools, which went a combined 12-0 as UW-Stevens Point, UW-Oshkosh and UW-Whitewater all swept Alma, Otterbein and host Adrian. Individually, standout performances were registered by UW-Oshkosh 125-pounder Luc Valdez and UW-Stevens Point 133-pounder Matt Berlin. Valdez went 4-0 with four falls, while top-ranked Berlin went 4-0 with four falls in a total time of 9:16.
The rare D3 over D1 dual
All things considered, yes, everyone knows (or should know) Bellarmine is in the middle of its transition from NCAA Division II to Division I and head coach Ned Shuck is in his first year at the helm of the Knights program. In fact, Bellarmine picked up a D1 dual win last week by criteria over SIU Edwardsville. This weekend wasn’t as kind as Division III Averett, a relatively new program in its own right, knocked off Bellarmine 22-16 in a quad hosted by George Mason, alma mater of Averett head coach Blake Roulo, who I’ve oddly enough, seen wrestle since he was a tike. Seriously, saw him at Fort Lee at the Virginia State Games in like 1999 or something. This one had some drama too it, too. Averett’s pretty strong down low and started out with wins from Sam Braswell, Joseph Jones and Brandon Woody to jump out to a 10-0 lead. Bellarmine benefitted from an injury default over All-American Alex Turley at 174 and actually took the lead after 184 pounds with Sam Schroeder’s 4-2 win. A pair of Division I transfers played a role at the last two weights as Billy Baldwin, a transfer from that school in Norfolk, won 4-2 at 197 before Trent Ragland, a Fargo All-American back in the day who spent a little bit of time at Virginia Tech as a freshman, pinned Bryant Wilkinson at 6:45. Ragland picked up a full set of near fall points in each of the first two periods.
Bonus Points: Tournament stuff
With weekends, we’ve got to cram in some extra stuff that’s just too robust for five cool things. The first is high school senior Clayton Whiting knocking off Iowa’s Abe Assad in the finals of the Luther Open at 184 pounds. Whiting is an Askren Wrestling Academy kid ranked No. 38 on Willie Saylor’s MatScouts Big Board. He’s already committed to Missouri. … Iowa had seven champions in the Elite Division at the Luther Open. Joe Russell once told me “wrestling season doesn’t start until you have a hot dog at the Bison.” He’s referencing the Bison Open, which has typically served as Minnesota’s starting point for the season and Russell was a longtime assistant with his alma mater. One matchup of note came out of the Bison Open finals and that was at 157 where Minnesota’s Brayton Lee edged North Dakota State’s Jared Franek in sudden victory as Lee was one of six Gopher champs on the day. … Just got word that the Grand View Open is finally over. That thing had 619 entries, with 379 of them coming in the Freshman/Sophomore Division. There were 47 wrestlers at 149 pounds, which was won by Iowa State commit Paniro Johnson, who’s not rostered this year in Ames, but doing that whole grayshirt thing. … In Division III, Johnson & Wales won four individual titles and took home top honors at the Roger Williams Invitational in Bristol, Rhode Island. Castleton finished second with two champions. … Oh, there were some ranked teams also in action, as No. 15 Pittsburgh beat Edinboro 28-20, No. 17 Oklahoma beat host West Virginia 28-10, No. 19 swept that aforementioned quad with a 39-3 win over Chattanooga, a 27-10 win over Clarion and a 35-6 win over host Davidson.
