Mizzou Wrestling: An Ohio Sweep and Home Duals

Beef

What a weekend for the Tigers this past Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon. The Tigers started their domination of the State of Ohio with a 25-18 win over the #25 Ohio Bobcats before moving down the road to Columbus to take down the #7 Buckeyes 20-19 on tie-breaking criteria. Lots of intriguing decisions and great results to work through, but what stood out the most?

BST

It was a damn good weekend for Mizzou. I think if I have to pick out just 1 stand out, its gotta be Drake Houdashelt. The Sr. decisioned #8 Claxton of Ohio 6-3 and followed that up with a 1st period pin of #3 Stiber from tOSU. New rankings came out today and Houdashelt is showing up anywhere from 2-4 nationally now and has to be considered not just an AA threat, but a legit NCAA title contender at this point.

Beef

I’d love to know how it came to pass that Drake ended up sticking Steiber, as these things, especially at the level these to wrestle, can be a combination of attacking and a mistake by the defensive wrestler. But I actually made an audible noise when I refreshed Twitter to see that result.

For me, I loved seeing Cody Johnston get a late TD and then a win in OT. Such highs and lows in that dual. Mayes takes the forfeit at 141, and I thought we were finished, but Drake came right back. After the loss at 157, I feared we might be done, and as the match at 165 went on, it seemed more and more likely. But what a great finish by Johnston to get the win and keep us in it. Talk about wrestling the full 7 minutes.

Speaking of, while the first period and a half from Alan Waters was TREMENDOUS, he seemed to gas out and barely hung on there at the end. What from the weekend has you scratching your head or furrowing your brow?

BST

I was a bit surprised that we forfeited the match against tOSU, I mean we handed them 6 points, why not send someone out there and try to keep it at least to a Tech Fall? Was Smith looking more for other match ups or momentum maybe?

I think with Waters he may have been a tad tired from racking up 16 points the previous day, or hes not all the way back to peak wrestling condition. I'd think he may get to sit out a match or 3 this weekend with the Scuffle upcoming next weekend. I'm also a bit disappointed in Matt Manley dropping both matches over the weekend. I was hoping to see a bit more from him.

Since we are roughly a third of the way through the season, lets take a second and look back before we start to talk about the upcoming duals and Scuffle. Who has done enough so far to improve your outlook on their season and who has fallen a bit short of your expectations?

Beef

One last thing on 141 before we move on. I think it is possible Mayes came up a little lame or dinged up and we had no one to fill in. Keep in mind, we are not bringing an entire team with us when we travel. We don’t just have the luxury of looking down the bench. You get someone hurt when you are on the road and that may be that for that weight class. I imagine there are a couple of extra people who come along, but perhaps there was no one at or around 141. Just my $0.02.

Trending in the right direction, in my mind, are Waters, Mayes, Houdashelt, Miklus and Cox. Going in the opposite direction are Manley and the HWY slot. Holding steady are England, Eblen and Johnston (each with different levels of expectation) and Lavallee is probably down just a bit from where I would want him, but still not terrible. You?

BST

I hadn't thought about someone being injured or not having enough guys to backfill at 141. I agree on your list and would say that Miklus and Manley are the biggest surprises for 2 very different reasons.

Beef

Not much in terms of ranked matches, but a couple of important matches against Kent State for MAC seedings. At 157, Lavallee goes against #13 Cody Pack. As best I can tell, these two do not have any history. The other I see out there is England against #13 Caleb Marsh. Last year in our dual, England lost 2-0, but at the MAC’s, England stuck Marsh mid-way through the 3rd period for a big win which certainly helped us eek out the title like we did. You seeing anything else worth mentioning for the weekend?

BST

Not really, I'm almost thinking we throw our A squad out against Kent and then put in as many JV guys as possible to get some experience against the other 2 teams.

After this Friday the team gets some much deserved rest before their biggest non MAC or NCAA tournament of the year, the Southern Scuffle. Here is a quick break down of the teams in attendance and the ranked wrestlers in each class:

Team Tournament Ranking:

Penn State 5th

Missouri 6th

Cornell 7th

Oklahoma State 7th

Nebraska 11th

Pittsburgh 12th

Iowa State 13th

Virginia 14th

Michigan 15th

Lehigh 17th

NC State 20th

North Carolina

Boise State

Appalachian State

Army

Buffalo

Bucknell

Campbell

Central Michigan

Chattanooga

The Citadel

Cleveland State

Drexel

Duke

Gardner Webb

George Mason

Kent State

Navy

Northern Colorado

Stanford

Wyoming

Weight classes:

125

Mizzou - Alan Waters 3rd

Cornell - Nahshon Garrett 2nd

Wyoming - Tyler Cox 9th

Penn State - Jordan Conaway 10th

Ok State - Eddie Kilmara 11th

Stanford - Evan Silver - 12th

Northern Colorado - Trey Andrews 16th

Bucknell - Paul Petrov 17th

Chattanooga - Sean Boyle 19th

133

Mizzou - Matt Manley 16th

Penn State - Jimmy Gulibon 5th

Lehigh - Mason Beckman 6th

Michigan - Rossi Bruno 8th

Virginia - George DiCamillo 10th

Iowa State - Earl Hall 13th

Chattanooga - Nick Soto 14th

Kent State - Mackenzie McGuire 15th

141

Mizzou - Lavion Mayes 8th

Michgian - Stephen Dutton 5th

Pittsburgh - Edgar Bright 7th

Virginia - Joe Spisak 13th

North Carolina - Joey Ward 14th

Cornell - Mark Grey 15th

Boise State - Geordan Martinez 17th

NC State - Sam Speno 19th

Nebraska - Anthony Abidin 20th

149

Mizzou - Drake Houdashelt 5th

Ok State - Josh Kindig 2nd

Cornell - Chris Villalonga 6th

Virginia - Gus Sako 7th

Penn State - Zack Beitz 13th

Michgian - Alec Panaleo 14th

Iowa State - Gabe Moreno 15th

Pittsburgh - Mike Racciato 16th

Duke - Marcu Cain 17th

Nebraska - Justin Arthur 19th

157

Mizzou - Joey Lavallee 12th

Nebraska - James Green 2nd

Kent State - Ian Miller 3rd

Cornell - Brian REalbuto 4th

Penn STate - Dylan Alton 10th

Michigan - Brian Murphy 15th

Duke - Iammnuel Kerr-Brown 18th

165

Mizzou - Cody Johnston NR

Ok State - Alex Dieringer 1st

Virginia - Nick Suzler 2nd

Iowa State - Michael Moreno 4th

Cornell - Dylan Palacio 5th

Michigan - Taylor Massa 10th

Stanford - Jim Wilson 13th

Navy - Peyton Walsh 15th

NC State - Max Rohskoph 17th

Nebraska - Austin Wilson 20th

174

Mizzou - Mikey England NR

Nebraska - Robert Kokesh 1st

Penn State - Matt Brown 2nd

Pittsburgh - Tyler Wilps

Virginia - Blaise Butler 6th

Iowa State - Tanner Weatherman

Kent State - Caleb Marsh 13th

Michigan - Davantoe Mahomes 14th

NC State - Pete Renda 16th

Ok State - Kyle Crutchmer 17th

Stanford - Keaton Subjeck 20th

184

Mizzou - Willie Miklus 9th

Pittsburgh - Max Thomusseit 1st

Lehigh - Nathaniel Brown 3rd

Cornell - Gabe Dean 7th

Wyoming - Ben Stroh 15th

Michigan - Dominic Abounader 16th

Nebraska - TJ Dudley 17th

Iowa State - Lelund Weatherspoon 18th

Penn State - Matt McClutcheon 19th

197

Mizzou - J'Den Cox 3rd

Iowa State - Kyven Gadson 1st

Penn State - Morgan McIntosh 4th

Duke - Conner Hartmann 5th

Pittsburgh - Nick Bonaccorsi 10th

Michigan - Max Huntley

Virginia - Zach Nye

Lehigh - Elliot Riddick 17th

Cornell - Jace Bennett 18th

Wyoming - Shane Woods 19th

Ok State - Austin Schafer 20th

HWT

Mizzou - ?

NC State - Nick Gwiazdowski 2nd

OK State - Austin Marsden 4th

Michigan - Adam Coon 7th

Penn State - Jon Gingrich 8th

Nebraska - Collin Jensen 14th

Wyoming - Tanner Harms 16th

Bucknell - Joe Stolfi 20th

We can go more in depth next week, but what jumps out at you about the Scuffle for the team as a whole and who is poised to make a deep run?

Beef

Wow…tremendous work there.

So…weight by weight first thoughts

125: Hopefully we get the Waters/Garrett match we were supposed to get at the All-Star meet back in November

133: Chance for Manley to make up for some of the missed chances he has had earlier this year

141: Class could be there for the taking if he is healthy

149: Another chance for Drake to get back to being #1 after this somewhat poor NCAA showing

157: Brutal at the top of this class

165: BRUTAL in the whole damn thing

174: Good lord there is a lot of depth at the middle weights in this tourney

184: Perhaps we get to see just how good Miklus is

197: McIntosh in the semis and Gadson in the finals? PLEASE

HWY: Who the hell knows

I will be very interested to see how Penn State wrestles just because most believe their run of NCAA titles is very likely done this year. This will also give us a preview of Cornell for our dual later in the season. Fun to see NU, OSU and ISU in it from an old Big XII standpoint. Central Michigan being in there as well (along with Kent and Buffalo from the MAC) is nice.

And you?

BST

I agree on 125, 149 & 197. Those are all 3 set up nicely for Mizzou to have a shot at winning the class, but not without some high level competition along the way. I think I'm most interested in 184 & 141 and see how Miklus and Mayes can do against very good competition that they might well see again come NCAA championship time.

The teams that are going to be at the Scuffle this year are just as deep as the middle weight classes. You've got a bajillion team titles between Penn State & Okie State, good conference action for the MACs and Cornell as well. I'm excited to follow along on January 1st & 2nd along with bowl games.

Anything else you'd like to add for now?

Beef

Nope….I imagine we will wrap up the three home duals from the weekend early next week and then take a break until the Scuffle wraps up.

Happy Wrestling everyone!