Chattanooga finishes 14th at Southern Scuffle
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. – Penn State built a big lead through Friday’s semifinals and cruised to its fifth straight team win at the 2015 Defense Soap & Flips Wrestling Southern Scuffle. The Nittany Lions outdistanced Missouri 165.0 to 150.0, despite not taking any individual titles.
The host University of Tennessee at Chattanooga placed 14th overall with two medalists. Seniors Sean Boyle and Nick Soto both made the podium. Boyle was third at 125, while Soto placed for the third time in his career with a seventh-place showing at 133.
Oklahoma State (135.5), Nebraska (116.0) and Michigan (88.5) rounded out the top five. Cornell (79.5), Lehigh (79.0), Pittsburgh (72.0), Wyoming (57.5) and Virginia (51.5) made up the rest of the top 10.
Boyle started his day in the championship quarterfinals against No. 3 Alan Waters. He dropped that match in a 15-0 tech fall. Waters was on his way to winning the 125 bracket, but Boyle was far from done.
Boyle came right back with a nice 6-2 win over Iowa State’s Kyle Larson. He followed that with an 8-0 major decision over Cleveland State’s Ben Willeford to secure a spot in the medal round.
In the consolation semifinals, Boyle ran into another top-10 ranked opponent in Wyoming’s Tyler Cox. Boyle advanced to the third-place match with an 8-4 decision. In the medal round, he outpaced Oklahoma State’s 11th-ranked Eddie Klimara 11-9.
Soto opened his day in the backdraw, posting a 9-5 win over Drew Templeman of Wyoming. He followed that with a 7-5 victory against Campbell’s Nathan Kraisser.
His signature win came against Virginia’s 10th-ranked George DiCamillo. Soto got into a 7-1 hole early in the match but battled back for a 12-9 decision. He slipped up and was pinned by 15th-ranked Kevin Devoy of Drexel in his next match.
That loss dropped him to the seventh-place match against North Carolina’s Troy Heilmann. Heilmann had beaten Soto twice in the last month, including a 10-0 decision Thursday. Soto got out in front early and stayed ahead for a 10-4 win.
Individual champions included Missouri’s Waters (125), Lavion Mayes (141) and J’Den Cox (197), Iowa State’s Earl Hall (133), Oklahoma State’s Josh Kindig (149), Alex Dieringer (165) and Austin Marsden (285), Nebraska’s James Green (157) and Robert Kokesh (174) and Cornell’s Gabe Dean (184).
Dean pinned Pittsburgh’s No. 1-ranked Max Thomusseit in the second period in the finals to win the Most Outstanding Wrestler Award for the second year in a row. It was the second straight Scuffle title for the sophomore.
Friday’s attendance at the 2015 Defense Soap & Flips Wrestling Southern Scuffle was 3,320. That is the second-largest crowd since the tournament moved to Chattanooga in 2012.
Appalachian State finishes 17th at Southern Scuffle
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. – Appalachian State completed day two of the Southern Scuffle on Friday. Coming into the second day of action, the Mountaineers were in 20th place and had six wrestlers still fighting in the consolation bracket. The Mountaineers finished 17th.
Dominic Parisi started his second day with back-to-back decision wins over over Lehigh's Darian Cruz and Scotty Parker. In the sixth round of the consolation, Parisi fell to Ben Willeford of Cleveland State by a 3-2 decision.
In his first two consolation matches Vito Pasone was dominant. Pasone won via technical fall over Jared Browning of Chattanooga before pinning Tyler Keselring of Central Michigan 5:50 into the match. In his next match, Pasone was defeated by Drexel's No. 15 Kevin Devoy by pin.
After making it to the third round of the championship bracket, Michael Longo won by pin in his first consolation match against Benjamin Polkowske of Northern Colorado 2:39 into the bout. Longo was then defeated by George Fisher of Michigan by pin.
With two day-one consolation victories to his name, Zack Strickland progressed onto the next round by medical forfeit over No. 3 Ian Miller of Kent State. Strickland then dropped a 4-2 decision to Michigan's Brian Murphy.
Nick Vetell won two more consolation matches on day two to give him four on the tournament. First he won 2-0 over James Suvak of Virginia and then followed up with a pin of Ryan Davies of Stanford. Vetell would drop a 9-3 to Nolan Boyd of Oklahoma State in the sixth round.
In his first consolation match of the tournament, Denzel Dejournette won by decision over Josh Marchok of Stanford. Dejournette followed up with another decision victory over Brian Macchione of Northern Colorado in the fifth round. The Winston-Salem, N.C., native was then fell to Jon Gingrich of Penn State in a 9-5 decision.
The Mountaineers improved three spots to finish 17th out of 32 team field. The Apps are back in action on Jan. 7 in Edwardsville, Illinois, to take on SIUE.
Gardner-Webb finishes 25th at Southern Scuffle
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. – Cortez Starkes, Tyler Ziegler, Ryan Mosley, Austin Trott and Justin Kozera each posted a pair of wins to kick off the New Year at the prestigious 2015 Defensive Soap & Flips Wrestling Southern Scuffle.
Starkes rebounded from a loss to Nebraska’s Tim Lambert – ranked No. 17 nationally by InterMat – to win a pair of decisions in the consolation bracket at 125. He fell, 6-5, in a tight loss to Lehigh’s Scotty Parker.
Ziegler also bounced back from a first-round loss at 133, shutting out unattached wrestler Demetreu Kostis (5-0) and taking a 3-1 decision over Boise State’s Michael Cook before a major decision loss to Pittsburgh’s Nick Zanetta (15-3) ended his run.
Mosley had four tight matches at 149 pounds, falling 3-2 to North Carolina’s Joey Moon but bouncing back with a 4-3 win over Cornell’s Taylor Simaz and a 3-1 win over The Citadel’s Matthew Frisch. He dropped a 2-1 decision to Nebraska unattached grappler Tyler Berger in his final bout.
Trott picked up a first-round win over Iowa State’s Logan Molina with a 6-0 shutout but was pinned by Duke’s Brian Dorsey in a surprise result. Trott responded with a pin of Kent’s Tyler Buckwalter in just 1:28 but saw his day end on a pin by Army’s Coleman Gracey.
Kozera picked up two more pins himself during the Scuffle and sits tied with Trott for the team lead now with six on the season.
Kozera came back from an opening-round loss to Central Michigan’s Austin Robinson at 285 to pin Army’s Mason Kumashiro (4:21) and Iowa State’s Jon Scanlan (4:12). He dropped a close 3-1 decision to Kent’s Mimmo Lytle to end the run.
Gardner-Webb picked up 20.5 team points over the two-day event, good for 25th in the 31-team event.
Gardner-Webb returns home for its next bout, hosting Binghamton on Friday, Jan. 9,, at 7 p.m. in Paul Porter Arena.