At the beginning of the first day of competition, there were four undefeated wrestlers: Chad Mendes of Cal Poly, Keith Gavin of Pittsburgh, Jake Varner of Iowa State, and Josh Glenn of American University. By comparison, at last year's NCAAs, there were eight wrestlers who came to Auburn Hills with perfect records.
Let's recap some of the day's highlights, weight by weight …
125: At conclusion of the second round of 125-pound matches, all but one of the top eight seeds were still in title contention. The one exception: Tenth-seeded James Nicholson of Old Dominion, who upset No. 7 Michael Sees of Bloomsburg 8-2.
133: Hofstra's Lou Ruggirello has two claims to fame at the 2008 NCAAs. The Pride 133-pounder got the very first fall of the tournament. Ruggirello also made news with a truly epic-length match against Chattanooga's Stephen Hromada in the first round. It took the sixth-ranked Pride wrestler three tiebreakers, winning on an escape to win 3-2. The match was appealed �- there was a question whether the escape in the twelfth period was before the buzzer -- but the result stood, appeal denied. The match lasted thirteen minutes �- not the longest in NCAA championship history, but its believed to be the longest since the mid 1960s when match length was cut from nine to eight minutes.
The second supersized battle at 133 pounds was in the second session, Spartan vs. Buckeye: top-seeded Franklin Gomez of Michigan State vs. unseeded Reece Humphrey of Ohio State. Gomez had been leading throughout much of the match, but the Buckeye made it 4-3 towards the end of regulation… but the Spartan tied it up in the last seconds of regulation. There was no scoring in first sudden victory period. Or the second. In the third sudden victory period, Gomez got an escape. Humphrey knotted it up again with an escape of his own. It looked like the Buckeye had a takedown but ruled out-of-bounds. After thirteen minutes of wrestling, Gomez won based on four seconds of ride time!
Despite Lou Ruggirello's hard work in his thirteen-minute match, he was upset in his third bout by the Navy's Joe Baker, seeded eleventh, who got a 3-1 win over the Hofstra wrestler. Otherwise, the top eight wrestlers continued on their title quest.
141: The top six seeded wrestlers continued towards the finals. Seventh-seeded Kyle Ruschell of Wisconsin was upset by unseeded Matt Kyler of Army 5-3, SV2. It was the West Point wrestler's second upset of the day. Kyler had knocked off tenth-seeded Cody Cleveland of UT-Chattanooga 5-2 in the opening round.
149: Seventh-seeded Darrion Caldwell of North Carolina State got his second pin of Day One, having gotten a fall in his first match vs. Boston University's Mike Roberts. Thursday evening, he pinned Central Michigan's Brandon Carter.
In this weight class, the top seven wrestlers continued their advance towards the finals, with five Big Ten wrestlers making it to the quarterfinals. There was one slight upset �- ninth-seeded Lance Palmer of Ohio State got a 14-6 major decision over the eighth seed, Jake Patacsil of Purdue.
157: In a tournament that hasn't featured too many upsets, this weight class tried to make up for it. First, a nice surprise for Hofstra as Jonny Bonilla- Bowman got a 5-3 win over No. 4 Brandon Becker of Indiana. The Hoosier was penalized at the end of the match for unnecessary roughness.
Moments later, twelfth-seeded Josh Zupancic of Stanford got the win over C.P. Schlatter of Minnesota, the fifth seed, 5-3.
Eleventh-ranked Tyler Shelfey of Boise State got an upset in overtime over Pitt's sixth-seeded Matt Kocher, 3-3, TB 2.
And, in what may be classified as a minor upset, tenth-seeded Michael Chandler of Missouri beat Big Eight rival Cyler Sanderson of Iowa State, the seventh seed, 5-3. The Tiger got a 3-point near fall in the third to counter the Cyclone's first-period takedown.
Thanks to these upsets, only the top three seeds were still on the path to the championship: defending champ Gregor Gillespie of Edinboro, Illinois' Mike Poeta, and Dan Vallimont of Penn State. The other ranked wrestlers were seeded eighth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth … along with the unseeded Bonilla-Bowman.
165: The top six seeds cruised on their path to the finals. The one "overachiever" was tenth-seeded Mike Cannon of American University; on Thursday night, he beat the man (Penn's Zach Shanaman) who beat the seventh-seeded wrestler, Jacob Dieffenbach of Oklahoma State 5-4 in the first round.
174: Two upsets worth mentioning: Cornell's eleventh-seeded Steve Anceravage pinned familiar foe, the sixth-ranked Alton Lucas of Hofstra. (The two had split their two matches this season.)
Nathan Lee of Oregon scored two surprises on opening day at the 2008 NCAAs. In the first round, he got a 3-1, SV 1win over Minnesota's eighth-seeded Gabe Dretsch. In the second, the Duck got a 2-1, TB 1 over ninth-seeded Brandon Mason of Oklahoma State.
The top five wrestlers at 174 remained perfect at the end of the first day: Pitt's Keith Gavin, Michigan's Steve Luke, Nebraska's Brandon Browne, Iowa's Jay Borschel, and Brandon Sinnott of Central Michigan. Also in contention: seventh-seeded Matthew Stophinski of Navy, and eleventh-seeded Steve Anceravage of Cornell.
184: Two surprises in this weight class: Rider's unseeded Doug Umbehauer got a 3-2 win over twelfth-seeded Jack Jenson of Oklahoma State. It was the Rider wrestler's second upset of the day, having beaten fifth-seeded Josh Weitzel of Oklahoma 9-5 in the first round.
Nebraska's unseeded Vince Jones got a 7-5 win over third-seeded Tyrel Todd of the University of Michigan on Thursday evening. The top two seeds, Iowa State's Jake Varner, and Mike Pucillo of Ohio State, continued undefeated… as did the fourth, sixth, seventh and eighth seeds.
197: A big Cyclone upset, as unseeded David Bertolino got a 6-4, SV 1 win over third-seeded Mike Tamillow of Northwestern. In addition to the unseeded Iowa Stater, the top two seeds -- along with the light-heavyweights seeded fourth through eighth -- are still alive in the title hunt.
Hwt: The top-ranked big men of college wrestling followed the script to the letter; all of the heavyweights seeded one through eight made it into the quarterfinals.
At the end of competition on Thursday, all of the first and second seeds survived into the quarterfinals. However, two third-seeded wrestlers -- Michigan's Todd, and Northwestern's Tamillow -- had their title hopes dashed.
Team standings:
1. Iowa 29.5
2. Nebraska 26.5
3. Iowa State 25
While we celebrate the first day of competition at the 2008 NCAAs, we also have sad news to report: Tommy Evans passed away March 18 at age 77 after long illness. Evans' wrestling resume was impressive by any measure -- a two-time NCAA champ for the University of Oklahoma, Outstanding Wrestler of the tournament in 1954, and a member of the US Olympic team. He then took the reins of the Sooners, where, in thirteen seasons, his wrestlers won two team championships and nineteen individual national titles; 59 Sooners earned All-American honors
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