Well, another NCAA Wrestling Tournament is in the books. I was basically exhausted by Thursday night and adrenaline carried me through another 18 hours of wrestling.
I get why people like the NCAA Basketball Tournament as it is basically a good high. You just can mellow out, get a few cases of the giggles, and maybe have one bad moment where your team loses, but then you get more giggles with some upsets and buzzer beaters, and you can do it again for the next two weekends.
With the NCAA Wrestling Tournament, it's a meth binge. You have crazy highs and crazy lows and those can be separated by minutes. You're jittery, you irrationally scream, claw at your own skin, scream, and start giggling out of control. It's the best weekend of the year, and you thank god that you don't have to do it for another year. By that time, I will erase the lows and remember that sweet euphoria of seeing an Iowa Hawkeye's hand raised on Saturday night. I feel bad for anyone who doesn't follow this sport.
I know the Iowa Hawkeyes only finished in fourth place when second place was a realistic goal, but looking at how guys wrestled, it's so tough for me to find complaints about what this team did this past weekend. Let's break it down with each wrestler, starting with our big, burly, boy, and moving our way down to end on a high note.
Sam Stoll - Heavyweight - Round of 12
Sam Stoll had an incredible Thursday where he pulled off two upsets, but he did not fare so well on Friday as his complete inability to take an offensive shot unsurprisingly caught up to him. Stoll just never got healthy this year, so the fact that he was able to gut out two wins without any mobility was great to see. Sure, it would have been much better had he been able to pull out one more win, but it just wasn't in the cards. Stoll had a ton of bad luck at Iowa, but he was a four-year starter who seemed to be a team leader through his time. Let's hope Anthony Cassioppi can follow in his footsteps.
Jacob Warner - 197 - 7th Place
Even though Warner's place was lower than expected, he did a good job of attacking early as he got a first period takedown in nearly all of his matches. He also did a hell of a job putting a strong ride after he got that takedown. I would have liked to see some more aggression in getting turns from the top position, but he was able to control his man. He had a disappointing loss to Cal Poly's Thomas Lane, but that guy is a monster on top and just wore out Warner in the second period, and Warner simply didn't have enough energy to win the match after that. He managed to bounce back to become an All-American and although he lost another close match, this time to Fresno State's Josh Hokit, he did end up beating Ben Honis from Cornell to take 7th. There were a lot of positives, and I think a stronger gas tank and some more variety from the top position could make him a title contender next season.
Cash Wilcke - 184 - DNP (2-2)
I expected this in advance of the tournament, and unfortunately, Wilcke did finish shy of the top 12 for the first time in his career. But I just don't know how I can fault the guy. I would have liked to see him be more aggressive, but he just ran into some tough matchups. He wrestled a national finalist, Max Dean, as tough as possible, even holding a lead with 30 seconds to go before giving up a moderately questionable stalling call. I think it was stalling in how the rule is supposed to be called, but it was in defense of a shot. He bounced back and dominated Reinhardt from Wisconsin before running into Emery Parker, who was upset earlier in the tournament. He wrestled him close but had to try to get some offense going and got caught in a pin. Parker ended up taking fifth, so it ended up just being a bad draw for Wilcke, but I do think he has All-American potential for his senior season.
Alex Marinelli - 165 - 7th Place
Going into the tournament ranked #1, it's very easy to see this and say that Marinelli was disappointing in the tournament. Hell, even last year, he took sixth place. But that ignores the progress that Marinelli made this year and just how much better he wrestled, even though the outcome was not what we hoped. In the quarterfinals, he ran into eventual National Champion, Mekhi Lewis, and gave the eventual champion by far his toughest bout. Marinelli was aggressive throughout, but he failed on a couple early takedowns, and then when he had his best shot late in the match, he thought too much and gave Lewis time to work out of it. Mekhi Lewis may have the strongest hips in the NCAA, but I do think Marinelli can put enough pressure on Lewis to beat him in the future. He bounced back to beat Logan Massa in the blood round, but lost a close match to Chance Marsteller after that to go into the seventh place match. Marsteller wrestled a great match, and that's going to happen. He rebounded in for 7th by dominating Bryce Seitert of Northern Iowa. The end result is disappointing, but the aggression that he showed from the beginning to the very end of this tournament bodes well for his future national title hopes.
Kaleb Young - 157 - 5th Place
I though Kaleb Young would match his seed and end up with a sixth place finish, but instead he took 5th and looked far better than he has all season long. He won convincingly in his first two matches by being relentless in his attacks. Then, he just kept attacking in his third round match against Ryan Deakin and eventually pulled off the victory. In the semifinals, Tyler Berger just gave him no openings to attack, and Alec Pantaleo did the same thing in his first consolation match. Those guys were seen as a tier above Young, and they showed why as Young just couldn't find openings. Still, he bounced back to beat Deakin again in overtime to take fifth place. If he shows the aggression that he had at the NCAA Tournament, he's going to be a bonus point machine next year.
Pat Lugo - 149 - 8th Place
Lugo is still a bit of a mystery to me. Sometimes I think I'm too high on him, other times too low. His performance in this tournament was good but not quite great. He controlled his first match, then gutted out his second, but then ran into Micah Jordan who was clearly a level above him. After that, he totally controlled Tommy Thorn to guarantee himself an All-American finish. He wrestled Finesilver tough early but got overwhelmed late, and the story repeated against Iowa State's Jarrett Degen when it looked like he had a commanding lead, but Degen stormed his way back to win 11-9 and Lugo finished in 8th place. There's room for improvement, but it's tough to see him wrestling on a Saturday night.
Max Murin - 141 - Round of 12
Although it hurts to fall one match short of All-American status, it's tough to ask for much more out of Murin. He had two incredibly tough wins to start out his tournament by beating Tristan Moran and Mike Carr. After that, he got #3 seed Nick Lee, who he just didn't have the offense to compete with and lost 4-1. In the consolation round, he got Chad Red, who was finally able to fulfill his potential at the end of this season, and he was too much for Murin. Murin will need to build on his offense if he wants to take a step forward in what will continue to be a very tough weight class next season.
Austin DeSanto - 133 - 5th Place
Here's the thing, Spencer Lee won a National Title, but I'm not sure if he had a single match that will be as memorable as any of DeSanto's seven matches. Let's take a look.
First Match - Stalls a guy into a disqualification in TWO MINUTES AND TWENTY SECONDS. As far as I know that is a record, and I believe that record will never be broken.
Second Match - Roman Bravo-Young and DeSanto were nonstop action as there was pushing and pulling and shooting and sprawling and scrambling all over the place and eventually, DeSanto came out on top of the final scramble to secure a 7-2 win.
Third Match - Stevan Micic was probably the least memorable match as DeSanto pushed and pushed but just couldn't get to his offense. Micic got a takedown, and DeSanto couldn't find a way past his defense.
Fourth Match - DeSanto takes on Austin Gomez to become an All-American, and holy shit was this an insane scramble fest. Luckily, DeSanto found a way to come out on top of the first scramble, pick up the big lead, and then Gomez was left trying anything he could to make up the gap at that point, and DeSanto managed to avoid any big slip-ups and build his lead up to a 16-5 major decision. This match is going to be so much fun for the next couple years.
Fifth Match - Somehow Ethan Lizak has become DeSanto's arch nemesis, probably because Lizak is great at riding, and DeSanto struggles to get out from bottom. Well, that was still the case in this match, but DeSanto won on the feet to keep it tied 2-2 going into overtime where he was able to secure another takedown for the victory and celebrated by screaming in Lizak's face. DeSanto gotta DeSanto.
Sixth Match - This one was the most heartbreaking as DeSanto lost a back-and-forth battle against Luke Pletcher 7-6. DeSanto got a hands to the face call early in the match that proved to be the difference when Pletcher secured a late takedown and was able to ride him out to win the match.
Seventh Match - DeSanto bounces back to win 11-6 over John Erneste where he just kept getting takedown after takedown and kept that relentless pace up for seven minutes. There are some very tough guys at this weight, but I see no reason why DeSanto can't be in the national title conversation during his final two seasons.
Spencer Lee - 125 - National Champion
After the way Lee steamrolled through the NCAAs, expectations were not sky high, they were impossibly high. I didn't think he'd go undefeated, I thought he would bonus every single wrestler he faced this year. Looking back, that was not a wise thought on my part, but he was that damn good last year that I got a little lost in things. Lee wasn't as dominant, but when it mattered, he was just as good as ever. His first day was a little plodding as he seemed to struggle for everything. Of course, for him, struggling meant a tech fall and a major decision, but still, he worked very hard to get those outcomes. Friday morning, he dominated Sean Russell for the third time, with each match getting more and more dominant as he started with a decision, then a major, and finally a pin.
Friday night, he rematched Nick Piccininni, and he proved that the pin was a fluke as Lee controlled the match. Lee's run is remembered so fondly because of his pin in the semifinals against Nathan Tomasello, but really, his match against Piccininni was incredibly similar to that match from 2018. Lee was up 6-2 on Tomasello, and the Buckeye tried to make something happen and got caught in a pin. This year, Lee was up 6-4 (with riding time point locked), and Piccininni tried to make something happen and ended up on his back so Lee got an 11-4 win since he ran out of time on completing the pin.
Finally, last year's finals was a 5-1 win against Nick Suriano. This year was a 5-0 win over Virginia's Jack Mueller. The only complaint was Lee getting ridden out in the second period, but he was never close to being turned. And Lee never gave Mueller a shot to win the match and controlled it from start to finish. He may have started slow, but he was relentless in each of his matches, and if Spencer Lee goes hard for seven minutes, there isn't a guy in the NCAA that is going to beat him.
The basic reality is that with Penn State existing, this Iowa team never had a chance at a National Title. They did have a shot at second, but Ohio State came through and put up an impressive performance with five guys in the semifinals. Iowa pulled off some close matches, and they lost some close matches, but it was the classic Iowa aggression that stood out in this tournament. Guys were going for it, and that was great to see. Next year, it is going to be a much tighter team competition. Penn State loses their top two wrestlers, Ohio State and Oklahoma State are both going to be tough, and the Hawkeyes should be even tougher with a ready replacement for Sam Stoll and a returning Michael Kemerer.
Next year's going to be awesome, but I could definitely use a rest.
