The NCAA Wrestling Championships start today at noon. I thought it would be a good idea to open a new thread for following the progress of our Hokie wrestlers. This is a very good team and should be in contention for one of the top spots. 8 Hokies qualified this year, with only 2 weight classes not represtented. That doesn't suck. Only 8 teams got more invites.
For those interested in keeping up with team scoring, I found this link, which will be updated regularly.
Follow Team Scoring at Penn State Wrestling Club
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Comments
When does the steel cage death match occur? I always liked that part as a kid! :)
Tables and Ladders and Chairs... oh my
Sorry, they don't do that in NCAA's. I guess that's why the SEC doesn't participate.
Dance, Chisko, and Brascetta all win their first matches so far.
That's awsesome, but none of them got bonus points. We're gonna need some of those to finish near the top of this thing.
McFadden with a pin.
Epperly lost his first-round match. That's quite an upset.
Epperly gets embarassed by unranked wrestler from Penn. His inability to escape before giving up riding time cost him the match. Official allowed the opponent to stall out the entire third period.
Zavatsky with a 9-3 win. Couldn't pull off the last takedown for bonus points.
Zavatsky wins his first round match 8-3. Hokies are 5-1 so far with 2 more wrestlers (Haught and Walz) yet to go.
(edit: oops, 9-3, as macho says. I must've missed the riding time point)
Jared Haught wins 6-2 at 197 in his first match.
Haught wins 6-2. Showed a great surge in the third period to secure the win. Conditioning looked like it came in to play.
And Walz wins 5-2, finishing the first round for the good guys. 7-1 with bonus points for one fall isn't a bad way to start the tourney. While the Epperly loss was disappointing, he should be able to do some damage in the consolation bracket.
Now we will see if Epperly can shake off the disappointing loss and fight for twam points and an All American spot in the consolation bracket.
Hokie wrestler's performances in consolations could be the difference between a top 5 team finish and a top 10 or worse finish.
Any realistic chance of making a run for it all with the Epperly loss? I know if things broke right, there could have been a chance before....
I'm not sure there ever was a 'realistic' chance to begin with. Barring disaster, this is Penn State's tournament to lose. Epperly's early loss certainly hurts for sure, though. Each win in the championship bracket is worth a full team point, while wins in the consolation bracket are worth a half point, so there's a couple possible points we lose right off the bat.
I think the biggest hindrances to VT's chances are the lack of true championship contenders and the lack of high-scorers. Dance and Walz are our highest seeded wrestlers, and while Dance has a decent shot (his only loss of the year was a fairly close match to the #1 Tomasello), Walz has the misfortune of competing in the same class as NC States Gwizdiowski, who hasn't lost in something like 2 years. As far as bonus points are concerned, our guys don't have a track record of putting up a lot of falls or major decisions, for which they could get bonus points for the team score.
The good news, though, is that we do have 7 guys who advanced to the second round in the championship (winners) bracket. Only Penn State and Nebraska topped that at 8 apiece, and only Oklahoma State tied it.
I don't think there was ever really a real shot at a team title, you need finalists for that and right now we're only slotted for one and Waltz might if he can upset a world champ, but that is dicey.
I'd say he shook it off pretty well. Won by technical fall (17-2) in the consolation round.
Poor Rutgers. They qualified at all 10 weights, but only 3 of their guys won in the first round.
Mizzou had a rough day too
Sucks for Epp, but hopefully he can turn it around and have a long run in the consolations
FUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!! Dance just fell 5-3. Couldn't get a takedown. Props to that kid from American though. He was pretty good.
Wow. That's a huge upset. I'm liking Tech's chances of a top 5 finish a LOT less all of a sudden.
Finally some good news in round 2: Champ. Round 2 - Solomon Chishko (Virginia Tech) 28-4 won by tech fall over Logan Everett (Army) 19-14 (TF-1.5 6:13 (16-1))
Bonus points for Chishko
Don't you mean
157 -
Champ. Round 2 - Nick Brascetta (Virginia Tech) 9-3 won by decision over Richie Lewis (Rutgers) 27-6 (Dec 7-6)
McFadden lost his 2nd round match. Not looking good for the good guys right now. I think we're just a better duel meet team than tournament team this year.
Zavatsky gets the 2nd round win by virtue of a last minute takedown to win 3-2.
We are kind of getting spanked tonight.
It's been a rough 2nd round that's for sure.
At least Walz scored some bonus points to finish off our 2nd round with a Major Decision. I see 4 of 8 Hokies advanced to the quarterfinals, which is still better than average. (Only 1 in 4 wrestlers get this far overall) Chishko, Brascetta, Zavatsky and Walz are still alive in the Championship bracket and the other 4 are still alive in the Consolation Bracket. As long as there are no more unexpected losses, Tech could still finish the tournament in the upper echelon and get a few All Americans in the process.
Epperly 17-2 victory in the consolation bracket. Great rebound effort there! Single leg takedown after single leg takedown. Still in good position for a top 5
And day 1 for the Hokies with Epperly crushing some poor fella from Bucknell 17-2 for the tech fall and the bonus points. I guess he wanted to prove he didn't really belong in the consolation bracket so early.
While Epperly's first round defeat and Dance's 2nd round defeat were certainly surprising and disappointing, this was still a good day for the Hokies. All 8 of our wrestlers will be continuing on to day 2 and four of them won both their matches to advance to the quarterfinals. Here's a brief summary of the results for all our guys.
2016 NCAA Division I Championships Results for Virginia Tech
125 - Joey Dance (29-2) place is unknown and scored 1.00 team points.
Champ. Round 1 - Joey Dance (Virginia Tech) 29-2 won by decision over Alfredo Rodriguez (SIU Edwardsville) 16-2 (Dec 8-2)
Champ. Round 2 - David Terao (American) 27-5 won by decision over Joey Dance (Virginia Tech) 29-2 (Dec 5-3)
141 - Solomon Chishko (28-4) place is unknown and scored 3.50 team points.
Champ. Round 1 - Solomon Chishko (Virginia Tech) 28-4 won by decision over Mike Pongracz (Chattanooga) 23-5 (Dec 9-3)
Champ. Round 2 - Solomon Chishko (Virginia Tech) 28-4 won by tech fall over Logan Everett (Army) 19-14 (TF-1.5 6:13 (16-1))
157 - Nick Brascetta (9-3) place is unknown and scored 2.00 team points.
Champ. Round 1 - Nick Brascetta (Virginia Tech) 9-3 won by decision over Russell Parsons (Army) 28-13 (Dec 9-4)
Champ. Round 2 - Nick Brascetta (Virginia Tech) 9-3 won by decision over Richie Lewis (Rutgers) 27-6 (Dec 7-6)
165 - David McFadden (22-10) place is unknown and scored 3.00 team points.
Champ. Round 1 - David McFadden (Virginia Tech) 22-10 won by fall over Cooper Moore (Northern Iowa) 16-8 (Fall 4:44)
Champ. Round 2 - Bo Jordan (Ohio St.) 18-2 won by decision over David McFadden (Virginia Tech) 22-10 (Dec 8-3)
174 - Zach Epperly (11-3) place is unknown and scored 2.00 team points.
Champ. Round 1 - Casey Kent (Pennsylvania) 27-8 won by decision over Zach Epperly (Virginia Tech) 11-3 (Dec 3-2)
Cons. Round 1 - Zach Epperly (Virginia Tech) 11-3 won by tech fall over Rustin Barrick (Bucknell) 27-12 (TF-1.5 7:00 (17-2))
184 - Zachary Zavatsky (25-5) place is unknown and scored 2.00 team points.
Champ. Round 1 - Zachary Zavatsky (Virginia Tech) 25-5 won by decision over Andrew Romanchik (Ohio) 15-11 (Dec 9-3)
Champ. Round 2 - Zachary Zavatsky (Virginia Tech) 25-5 won by decision over Hayden Zillmer (North Dakota St.) 31-5 (Dec 3-2)
197 - Jared Haught (18-8) place is unknown and scored 1.00 team points.
Champ. Round 1 - Jared Haught (Virginia Tech) 18-8 won by decision over Sam Wheeler (Cleveland St.) 28-9 (Dec 6-2)
Champ. Round 2 - Patrick Downey (Iowa St.) 8-2 won in TB-1 by fall over Jared Haught (Virginia Tech) 18-8 (TB-1 (Fall) 8:45)
285 - Ty Walz (25-2) place is unknown and scored 3.00 team points.
Champ. Round 1 - Ty Walz (Virginia Tech) 25-2 won by decision over Tanner Hall (Arizona St.) 23-11 (Dec 5-2)
Champ. Round 2 - Ty Walz (Virginia Tech) 25-2 won by major decisi on over Joseph Goodhart (Drexel) 25-13 (MD 16-5)
Update: Day 1 is officially in the books and VT is tied with Iowa and Mizzou for 5th place. While the early losses were certainly disappointing, only Penn St., Okie St, Ohio State, Nebraska and Iowa have more quarterfinalists than we do. For a non-blueblood in this sport, that's not too shabby. Great job, Coach Dresser and team!
Joey Dance loses 4-3 in his first consolation match
Wow. That's probably going to end up being the biggest individual disappointment of the entire tournament. Wasn't he the #2 seed?
He's done now. Went from 2nd seed to not even placing. Rough tournament for Dance. Also, he injured his ankle in the loss.
Was the injury in today's loss, or yesterday's?
Today. Looked like a pretty bad ankle sprain right at the beginning of the match. Lost because his opponent chose down coming out of injury timeout even though he couldn't put wait on that leg.
Well fuck. Insult + injury.
Finally some good news! Walz advanced to the semifinals. Bad news...World Champ Kyle Snyder awaits him there. So we only got one wrestler into the semifinals, but that's one more than loluva.
And Haught wins his match in the second round of the consolation bracket, the final Hokie in this round.
We have:
1 Hokie in the semifinals (Walz)
6 Hokies still alive in the consolation bracket (Chishko, Brascetta, McFadden, Epperly, Zavatsky and Haught)
1 Hokie eliminated (Dance)
And McFadden and Epperly both win by major decision in the 3rd round of the consolation bracket to stay alive. Epp has really been on fire since that first round loss. He's earned bonus points in all 3 matches of the consolation bracket so far.
Guess you could say he's on an EPPIC RAMPAGE perhaps?
So far in the Friday evening session, Brascetta and Chishko have advanced to the fifth round of the consolation bracket.
One more win would guarantee a top 8 finish and All-America honors.
Correctionn, they're already All-Americans.
Epperly wins by forfeit in Consolation round 4, also clinching All-American honors.
And Zavatsky's done. No trophy for him.
I was so bummed after last night that I haven't been watching much today, but damn am I glad I tuned in for McFadden's bout. I wasn't his biggest fan after he got pinned in one of the duels. He just won that match and ran over and jumped into Couch Dresser's arms. How cool was that. Brought a smile to my face.
Jared Haught just advanced and clinched AA honors too. This is turning into a very productive session for the good guys
Brascetta eliminates NC State's Gantt. Has secured a 6th place finish or better
That was a sweet win for Nick. After besting Gantt in previous years he had to deal with a bum knee and bulky brace and dropped a couple matches to him this year. To come out on top in the final match was perfect
McFadden also advances in the consolation bracket and notches a bonus point for the Major Decision. He had over 4:30 in riding time in that one. That's a pretty dominating performance right there.
Yet another bonus point win for Epperly. 10-2 over his opponent.
Fun fact: Epperly has already accumulated 15 team points this tournament. loluva has 3.5.
Also, around the end of the Epperly match I could hear a Let's Go Hokies chant on the ESPNU feed. That's pretty awesome that we're well represented at this thing all the way up in NYC!
Giving legs to everyone who cares enough to follow and post about wrestling, but wish I had another to agree with this.
We are currently sitting 4th in the team standings. Our guys have done a great job this evening.
Indeed. Such a shame that we didn't do so well earlier today. Walz is getting ready to start his semifinal match on Mat 4 I think. Could be an epic match. Snyder is a beast.
You're right. Snyder is a monster. That HWT final is going to be exciting. It's a shame that Joey had such a rough showing. Another All-American would have been awesome and the team points would have been huge.
That's always the round of death, not surprised that it went the way it did. Tech has really turned it around in the consolations though. If they can keep it up during the morning session tomorrow I think we may actually make a top 5 finish. That would be a big step for the program.
Haught advances to the consolation semifinals as well.
And in the shaved bear division, Ty Walz loses to Buckeye Kyle Snyder in the semifinals, ending our chances at having an individual champion this year. The Hokies will enter the final day of competition tomorrow in 4th place, well behind Penn State, but somehow not yet mathematically eliminated from championship contention. Penn State is looking like the clear favorite, but Okie Lite and VT still could theoretically unseat them. We've got six wrestlers still alive and they'll all finish somewhere between 3rd and 6th, depending on how they perform tomorrow.
Hokies 1.5 ahead of Ohio State but they have two wrestlers in the finals and we have none. It will be key that the wrestlers have a good outing tomorrow to finish in at least fourth.
Another way to look at is the Buckeyes are more likely to have reached their ceiling already, though. The two guys in the finals have already been awarded the 2nd place points. The only way for them to add to the total is to win the final. Snyder looked awful good against Walz, but Gwizdoiowski hasn't lost in about 90 matches now. Their other best contender, #1 Tomasello at 125, got upset in the semis. I think Tech has a fighter's chance of holding on to fourth place, and may have a decent chance at passing Iowa to end up at 3.
I really like our chances of holding on to that 4 spot. Would be pretty sweet if we snuck ahead of Iowa. Penn State and VT both have 6 wrestlers still alive heading into tomorrow which is the most of any team. Now, if we can only get Penn State and Okie State to drop all their matches tomorrow and we can manage to have all of our kids take the consolation brackets and finish 3rd we can come home with that team title.
Must pull against Iowa and Ohio State tomorrow. We need to stay top 4 to get a trophy, which would be the highest finish ever for the Hokies.
PSU is a lock now.
Chisko had nothing for Ashton(Rut) and will wrestle for 5th
Nick B Looked pretty good and will wrestle for 3rd.
Chisko loses to ODU in 5th place match. We are running out of guys
epp got another bonus point and has looked really good since the opening match. We've looked really good so far, but it may be hard to keep OSU at bay but hopefully we can add another couple of 3 or 4s with Haught and Walz.
Well a split is pretty good, hopefully we can come up all 3&5s to get more points in the next rounds
Those last two kinda sucked
Still the most AAs from VT, the most points and definitely the highest program finish. Hopefully a top 4, but top 5 almost assured.
Dresser and Zidick and crew did a great job this year, hopefully that follows up to even more next year as only losing Nick
Brascetta had an interview with flowrestling after the third place match and it was pretty fantastic especially with all the injuries he wrestled with this year. He will definitely be missed next year.
http://www.flowrestling.org/video/936825-brascetta-battled-his-body-all-year
Whit tweeted that he was there today. Nice to see him making the trip to support the team. I may be wrong, but I bet there aren't many other ADs there.
Most AD's would be at NCAA games so you can't really fault them.
A lot of the schools have pretty big contingents actually, especially the smaller schools with only a couple guys in the tournament. They did a couple AD interviews on the ESPN broadcast.
If I've mathed correctly we're guaranteed a top 5 finish because Mizzou is 12.5 points behind us and the most you can make up is 6, also we should know whether or not we get a trophy following the 149 finals. Now, knowing then is based solely on Iowa losing every finals match they have which is probably. It may hurt to admit but we're going to have to be rooting for PSU to lock up a top 4 finish and a trophy. On a sidenote Nashon Garrett, for Cornell, has been a beast all tournament it's going to be a shame to see him leave the college ranks.
With only the championship bouts left (and all the Hokies finished) VT is in 3rd place, with only 2 teams capable of passing us. Iowa trails by just one point and Ohio State trails by 4. With the winner of each match gaining an additional 4 team points plus possible bonus points, we're all rooting for everyone that's wrestling against the 3 Hawkeyes and 2 Buckeyes in the finals. Fortunately, they're all probably underdogs. Here are the matchups.
125: No. 3 Nico Megaludis (Penn State) vs. No. 4 Thomas Gilman (Iowa)
133: No. 1 Nahshon Garrett (Cornell) vs. No. 2 Cory Clark (Iowa)
141: No. 1 Dean Heil (Oklahoma St.) vs. No. 14 Bryce Meredith (Wyoming)
149: No. 1 Zain Retherford (Penn State) vs. No. 2 Brandon Sorensen (Iowa)
157: No. 1 Isaiah Martinez (Illinois) vs. No. 3 Jason Nolf (Penn State)
165: No. 1 Alex Dieringer (Oklahoma St.) vs. No. 3 Bo Jordan (Wisconsin)
174: No. 1 Bo Nickal (Penn State) vs. No. 11 Myles Martin (Ohio St.)
184: No. 1 Gabriel Dean (Cornell) vs. No. 7 Timothy Dudley (Nebraska)
197: No. 1 Morgan McIntosh (Penn State) vs. No. 2 J'Den Cox (Missouri)
285: No. 1 Nick Gwiazdowski (N.C. State) vs. No. 2 Kyle Snyder (Ohio State)
Came to ask who I should pull for. Thank you!
They didn't say it but I think Chisko was injured during the tournament. He looked hurt in most of his consolation matches, wincing and grabbing the right side of his chest. It would explain why he didn't ride very hard when his opponents took the bottom position. Regardless he had a great tournament.
Penn State, Oklahoma State, Iowa, Virginia Tech all tied for most All Americans with 6. Hokies had 6 of the ACC's 11 total All Americans. NC State had 3, Duke and UNC had 1 each. That put the ACC in third behind the Big Ten with 31 and the Big 12 with 13.
I think I heard on one of the streams during the wrestlebacks that it was a rib injury, but they didn't really specify what exactly. Glad he gutted it out though and showed well.
Thanks. A bruised rib would fit what I saw.
That AA count is really impressive, not just for VT, but for the ACC as a whole. We only have six teams, whereas I think the Big Ten has 14 and the Big 12 has 10.
Could have been even better but NC State had a rough tournament relative to expectations. Coming in I thought they had a stronger tournament team than we did even though we had the better dual meet team.
Obviously they would have expected Jack, Rohskopf, and Gantt to perform much better and then Gwiz lost as well. Our team showed a lot more heart in the consolation matches. Zavatsky losing to Renda was tough but otherwise we exorcised a lot of demons out there.
PSU's Megaludis has beaten Iowa's Gilman for the title at 125. We need all 3 Hawkeyes to lose tonight to hold on to our lead over them in the team standings.
Decided to start watching wrestling tonight. No Hokies in finals.
Now cheering for #EveryoneButIowaOhioState
And Cornell's Garrett has defeated Iowa's Clark at 133. That's 2 of the 3 results we need to hold on to the lead over Iowa and guarantee a third or fourth place finish.
Two down.
Penn State's ZPain Retherford has beaten Iowa's Brandon Sorenson. Convincingly. VT is now locked in to 3rd or 4th place, depending on how the two Buckeyes yet to wrestle perform.
So we want the Bucks to lose right?
Yes
Always and forever, but tonight we have an actual rooting interest in it. If one of their two finalists wins without bonus points, they tie us for third. If both win, or one wins with bonus points we fall to fourth. And if both their finalists lose, we claim third place all by ourselves.
Cauliflower ear is nasty.
Edit: Seriously why do these kids still have this going on? Headgear should prevent that.
Honestly headgear is just plain uncomfortable and if it weren't required by the rules in the NCAA very few people would wear it. With that being said no one wears it in practice or if they compete in the international styles headgear is non-existent.
Because permanent damage to your ears is better?
I never said it was logical that's just what happens. A lot of guys take pride in having it for some ungodly reason. In retrospect, and using myself for example, I don't regret a second of it.
I really don't get most of what these wrestlers are doing or where their points are coming from.
Ask away. We'll answer.
Why are there points for not taking them to the ground? That last match between Illinois and PSU wrestler seemed more slap happy and attempts than actually doing anything.
Wikipedia has a good summary on how points are scored, but a takedown doesn't have to be taking someone down. A better term would be back control. Getting behind the other guy is what gets you the takedown.
AirplaneBottleofBourbon described it really well. The scoring is mainly based on control rather than body position. Body position comes in to play when looking at back points or a pin.
Woohoo for Epperly! Thats quite an string of wins in back to back matches!
http://www.teamusa.org/USA-Wrestling/Features/2016/March/19/Live-Penn-St...
Bored with the basketball at this point...switching to wrestling. To make the podium as a team in NCAA championship is awesome!
This, Grayson Allen getting face-punched (hopefully) will make my weekend a lot better. Would've been nice if Butler could've closed the deal.
SOB!
Looks like the 11th seed Miles Martin (Ohio St) beat the top seed Bo Nickal (PSU), so OSU has caught us. We're still on the podium, though, which is really awesome.
Bonus points?
edit:
and was that the 11 seed guy or the 2 seed?edit 2: reading is fundamental.no bonus. we're tied for third and will stay there unless Snyder becomes the first heavyweight to beat NCSU's Gwizdiowski in the last 2+ years.
is there a tiebreaker or co-3rd place finish?
good question. I have no idea.
Rooting for Gwiz is hard but I am going to do it.
Kid is an animal. One of the few heavyweights actually worth watching.
So is Snyder from Ohio State. They both have more agility in their styles than traditional heavyweights. The one thing that I hate about Snyder that the refs let him get away with is driving opponents out. Refs call his opponents, like Walz, for stall calls when Snyder wasn't wrestling he was just pushing them out.
To that point, I've seen that happen a lot this year actually. It's really frustrating.
It is extremely unfair. There is a difference between being pushed out and backing out. Officials have to recognize the difference, which is very difficult in many cases.
My kids like him. He came on the screen and they thought he was Wreck-It Ralph.
I know that hurts us, but that PSU guy has the worst hair in America. I love seeing these guys run into the stands and hug their parents.
Snyder already a world champion they said. Makes things interesting.
Gwiz looks tired, normal look?
Whelp 4th place is still great.
Wow. Snyder has won, pushing us into 4th.
Gwiz had that match and lost it at the end of the third. It looked like he was gassed, but he didnt try to get the escape with 8 seconds left. Hell of a match.
Snyder locked hands so it was near impossible to get an escape.
Dresser the wrestling coach got national coach of the year.
Check out this reaction video from our fans, coaches, and wrestlers. Ty Walz is extremely passionate to say the least. Click Me