This past weekend, over 500 wrestlers from around the mid-west and country piled into the Hearnes Center Fieldhouse and onto 12 wrestling mats for the Missouri Open. There were two classes, the freshman/sophomore class and the Open Class. Mizzou did extremely well for the day, here is the recap. There is no team scoring format for this open tournament, so there is no team winner or loser, just so you know. Individual rankings are from WrestlingReport.com since they were the first site I found them on.
At 125, Mizzou put two wrestlers out in the Open Tournament, with sophomore John Olanowski and true frosh Troy Dolan. Mizzou had a nice showing here, with Dolan taking 3rd and Olanowski taking 4th in the class. The champion was #14 Brandon Precin, a sophomore from Northwestern.
At 133, Mizzou did not have anyone place. This does not surprise me, as Coach Brian Smith last year worked very hard to make sure that Tyler McCormick was rested and healthy for an end of the season run that resulted in his earning his 2nd straight AA (All American).
At 141, Mizzou was able to use a LOT of wrestlers in both groups, with junior Marcus Hoehn taking 3rd, RS Frosh Willie Sexton taking 4th, RS Frosh Vince Hannon taking 6th and true Frosh Brandon Weist taking 3rd in the "JV" tournament. The winner at this weight was #18 freshman Zack Bailey from OU, but this does show where an interesting strength for Mizzou will be, as we can expect wrestlers at this weight to be fighting for seasons to come to get a shot here.
At 149, senior #13 Josh Wagner also appears to have taken the day off, and Mizzou only placed true frosh Rudy Galarza in 5th place in the Frosh/Soph side. On the day, senior #1 Ryan Lang took the weight class. Strange thing is...he is #1 at 141....not 149. Anyway, dont know what to make of that, just thought it was strange.
At 157, this is where business started to pick up for the Tigers. Junior Andrew Sherry took 6th, but #12 junior Mike Chandler took 1st, winning 4 matches on the day, 2 by major decision. This runs his record to 5-0 on the season, one of three Tigers to remain perfect.
At 165, the good times kept rolling as true frosh Patrick Wright took the JV Tourney title, and #12 Sophomore Nick Marable took the Open title, capping his day with an impressive :46 pin of #9 Smith-Bergsrud of Illinois. Marable is now 6-0 on the season, and had a couple of big wins also with a tech fall and a major decision. More on Marable and the fact he will stay at 165 can be found here in MUTigers.com weekly Mat Chat
At 174, Mizzou continued their solid afternoon with true frosh Dorian Henderson taking 3rd in the JV Tourney, and senior James Williamson taking 2nd, losing 5-1 to #11 sophomore John Dergo of Illinois. Williamson has had a nice start to the season and I am hopeful he will productive at this weight, getting some key wins for us in what should (however) be a tough division in conference.
At 184, Junior #6 Raymond Jordan continued his fast start to the season, with 2 falls and a final match win over #30 Jesse Strawn of Old Dominion 7-4. Jordan took his third Missouri Open title of his career with the perfect afternoon. Also making a nice showing was RS Frosh Josh Skurnnik, who took 5th in the JV class.
At 197, Mizzou continued to show where the upper weights are going to be a huge strength, as #3 sophomore Max Askren bounced back from a 1-1 weekend out east to beat conference foe Eric Lapotsky of OU 4-2 in the finals. Askren's day was keyed by back to back pins in his first two matches.
To close out at HWY, #13 sophomore Mark Ellis took home the top spot, finishing his day with a well-earned 6-5 win over #27 junior John Wise. Ellis is now 6-0 on the season, and has earned bonus points in 4 of his 6 matches, which is pretty rare at the HWY level.
Mizzou now has 2 weeks before the Las Vegas Open, the 30th of November and 1st of Decemeber. Mizzou is defending champion of the tournament, and Max Askren will look to defend his individual title at 197.