All told, ASC finished with seven placers but slipped one spot to fourth place in the team standings after Dunning was the lone Grizzly to escape the morning semifinals victorious. ASC, ranked eighth as a team in the NWCA poll, had qualified five men for the semifinals and stood in third place after Friday's action.
Day 1 Leader Ashland (Ohio), ranked ninth, held on for a share of the team title with No. 17 Upper Iowa, which crowned a tournament-high three weight class champions. Both teams finished with 130.5 points. Wisconsin-Parkside, unranked but receiving votes in the national poll, ended up third with 116.5 points while ASC scored 108 thanks to Dunning, a third place finish from 141-pound junior Brian Pitts (Rio Rancho, N.M.), a fourth, two fifths and two sixths.
Dunning, ranked sixth in the nation, improved to 12-5 on the year with his two wins. The returning All-American had defeated the nation's second ranked wrestler in Shane Perkey of Indianapolis to advance to the semifinal match-up with Uhl, a 2-time All-American.
The tournament title was the first of Dunning's career. All five of his losses this year have come against NCAA Division I foes. He was only seeded fifth in this tournament and defeated three higher seeds to claim victory.
Pitts, a 2002 All-American at 125 pounds, recorded bonus point wins in both of his 141-pound matches on Friday before suffering a 4-1 setback to Wisconsin-Parkside's Craig Becker in the semifinals. However, the sixth-seeded Grizzly came back with a 4-1 victory of his own in the consolation bracket before taking an 8-7 win over Upper Iowa's Kyle Burkle, the tournament's top seed, to claim his first tournament placing since finishing third at the 2002 NCAA Division II National Championships. Pitts is now 7-9 (NCAA Official) this year.
Senior heavyweight Heath Soderstrom (Englewood, Colo.) finished fourth after advancing to the semifinals on Friday. Seeded fourth, Soderstrom dropped a 9-7 decision to top-seeded Brian Black of Upper Iowa in the semifinals before scoring a thrilling 5-4 sudden victory win over Joey Navarro of Indianapolis. Soderstrom then fell by a 5-3 count to second-seeded Josh Ohl of Ashland in the third place match.
125-pound senior Rob McCabe (Nucla, Colo.) and 197-pound junior Casey Woodall (Morenci, Ariz.) each finished their days on high notes claiming fifth place. Both had advanced to the semifinals before suffering two losses to start Saturday. McCabe, ranked fourth in the nation, has now finished fifth in all three career Midwest Classic appearances.
Sophomore Evan Copeland (Las Cruces, N.M.), ranked second in the nation at 165 pounds, and junior James Reynolds (Monte Vista, Colo.), ranked seventh at 174, each finished in sixth place. Both were in the consolation bracket to begin the day and posted early victories to advance. Copeland then forfeited out of the tournament while Reynolds dropped a 5-3 decision to Ohio Northern's Timmy Miller before being pinned by Ashland's Clint Carmony with just over a minute remaining in the pair's fifth place match. Reynolds had also dropped a 7-5 tiebreaker decision to Carmony, ranked third in the nation, in the championship quarterfinals on Friday evening.
The Grizzlies now turn their attention to the dual portion of the season and will face arch-rival Western State on Thursday in Gunnison before starting a mammoth-sized home stand next Saturday (Jan. 14) against Division I Air Force.
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