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I love Virginia. The state, not the town that shares the name in the Iron Range of Minnesota. Ok, I've been to Virginia, Minnesota, but that's not important right now. Want to hear a rant? Well, you might not have a choice — this is Short Time Shots, a look back at the day's scores and more from the world of wrestling for February 18, 2018., I'm your host, Poquoson, Virginia native and Hall of Fame writer, broadcaster and announcer Jason Bryant.
I just want to tell you both good luck, we're all counting on you.
This is the last of the regular season nightly updates and I'll actually be throwing in some of Saturday's stuff here from the NAIA, because my wife just spent a week in California on business and Saturday night, we spent catching up on The Amazing Race and Top Chef.
And I will throw the rant at the end of the show. It's an entirely different type of flying, altogether.
No. 1 Penn State finished the regular season at 14-0 and capped off a stellar season with seven falls in a 55-0 win over Buffalo. Several Buffalo starters took the dual off, after all, this one didn't mean much to anyone other than the seniors in the starting lineup and the fans wanting to see who was going to get the nod at 197 pounds. The “here, hold my beer” back-and-forth all year long between Mark Hall and Bo Nickal has been fun. Not saying these guys are slugging tallboys of PBR before going out on the mat and trying to pin people faster than the other, but Mark Hall went 56 seconds and NoBickal went 11 — seconds. That'll teach'em that the red zone is for the immediate unloading and loading of passengers.
The Nittany Lions will start next season building on its run of 45 straight dual meet victories.
No. 2 Ohio State looked fairly sharp in winning eight of 10 over No. 6 NC State in front of nearly 4,000 fans at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh. Just one week ago, the Pack set an attendance record, only to shatter it. Too bad the team W didn't follow. Myles Martin beat Pete Renda in a matchup of highly-ranked All-American 184 pounders, but Michael Macchiavello did give the Pack fans something big to cheer about as the North Carolina native knocked off Ohio State's Kollin Moore with two late third-period takedowns. Ohio State's Joey McKenna topped Kevin Jack at 141 pounds, while Hayden Hidlay stayed unbeaten for the Pack, beating Micah Jordan 6-3. The Buckeyes finished the season 14-1, while the Wolfpack finished 15-2 and Friday's win over Virginia Tech did give them the ACC regular season title. No, the WHITE zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers, there is no parking in the red zone.
No. 4 Michigan had little trouble with No. 20 Central Michigan. Although the Wolverines did see All-Americans Alec Pantaleo and Kevin Beazley drop matches. Head scratchers there.
No. 5 Oklahoma State wrapped up its Big 12 season 8-0 after shutting out host Fresno State 41-0 in front of 4,328 fans, the second largest crowd of the season for the reinstated Bulldogs.
No. 7 Iowa thrashed host Iowa State 35-6 to claim another victory in the CyHawk series. The Hawkeyes won all nine bouts that were contested. The only Cyclone win came via forfeit at 197 pounds. No. 9 Lehigh wrapped up its season with a 28-10 win over Pittsburgh. Lehigh's Darian Cruz finished his official season unbeaten with a tight 1-0 win over L.J. Bentley, while Pitt's Dom Forys knocked off All-American Scotty Parker 7-6 at 133 pounds. Jordan Wood topped Ryan Solomon 3-1 at 285. Oh stewardess, I speak jive. I think both of those terms are offensive to someone nowadays.
Just two seasons after going 2-13, No. 17 Northwestern capped off its regular season with a 36-10 win over SIU Edwardsville, pushing the Wildcats record to 11-4. No. 21 Rutgers topped Princeton 28-7, apparently the loser had to buy the winner Pork Roll, Egg and Cheese sandwiches for breakfast. By the way, on Saturday, Drexel beat Penn for the Cheesesteak Trophy. No. 22 Purdue closed out its Big Ten schedule by topping No. 18 Wisconsin in what's been probably one of the most hard-to-figure grouping of Big Ten teams outside the top four. It's like everyone has literally beaten each other all season long.
It's like that time we joined the Peace Corps — we worked with this tribe, the Malumbos. They'd never seen Americans before.
Other notables saw Appalachian State close out the SoCon schedule with a 6-0 mark. The Mountaineers blasted The Citadel 45-6. George Mason beat VMI in a battle of Commonwealth squads 40-9 — that being the Commonwealth of Virginia. Rider beat Maryland 23-18, West Virginia beat Clarion 25-13, Maryland finished the season with a W, beating Ohio 33-14 and Air Force won an all-Colorado battle against Northern Colorado 27-6. Those are the FINAL dual meets reported for this season on Short Time Shots.
Now to do something I typically didn't do this season, and that's give a recap of the previous day's previous day. So on Saturday, the NAIA national qualifiers were held in eight conferences. It's kinda similar to D1 in terms of each conference gets x-number of bids and then they wrestle for it. Full NAIA qualifier lists will be out on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. That championship will be in Des Moines the first weekend of March.
Second-year Reinhardt and coach Jeff Bedard won the Appalachian Athletic Conference, crowning seven champs. Reinhardt outdistanced second place West Virginia Tech 131.5 to 65.5. Don't expect too much at Nationals out of this conference, which is mostly programs started within the last few years.
Midland only had two champions, but captured the Great Plains title outdistancing second-place Northwestern College — the one in Orange City, Iowa — 137.5 to 107.5. In what's a complete surprise to absolutely no one, Grand View won the Heart of America Conference title with eight individual champions and 211.5 points. Second-ranked Missouri Valley was ? well, second, with 162 points.
York College of Nebraska won the (wait for it) Kansas Collegiate Conference with five champions and 155 points. Second-place Bethany, which is actually from Kansas, had 134 points. In the extremely balanced and tough Mid-South Conference, not to be confused with the old Mid-South wrestling with Jerry Lawler and company, Chris Fleeger's University of the Cumberlands took the championship, outdistancing second-place Lindsey Wilson 145-138.5. The Patriots had two champs and six runners-up. Campbellsville led all teams with three champions.
In the SOONER Athletic Conference, Indiana Tech – YES, I said Sooner, not Hoosier – Indiana Tech won six weights and scored 208 points, to lead the field. Oklahoma City finished with 136. In the American Midwest, which is named somewhat accurately, Williams Baptist scored 205 points and crowned seven champions to win the conference. Marian out of Indianapolis, was second with 125.
And now in the Cascade Collegiate Conference. Here's the deal. Menlo and Southern Oregon tied for the team title with 120 points and Providence, which was formerly Great Falls, finished third with 119. It came down to the last match of the tournament. There's a sale at Penny's!
Matthew Hopkins of Providence and Javier Gonzales of Menlo. Hopkins needs a major to give the Argonauts a share of the title. Gonzales needs any sort of win to give Menlo the conference title. Southern Oregon needs Hopkins to win only by a decision to have a tie at the top.
Knowing the relationship between Providence coach Caleb Scheaffer and Southern Oregon's Mike Ritchey, I can only imagine the taunting that was going on through this whole ordeal. Ultimately, Hopkins won 10-4, just missing the major. Again, had he gotten the major, we'd have a rare three-way tie for a championship. A tech or a fall would have done it.
Just wild. Almanac.mattalkonline.com for all the postseason links to tournament results. Buy the guide at mattalkonline.com/fanguide18 and use the offer code “podcast” to save yourself $5.
Now, here comes an unscripted rant about Virginia.
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