Army finished with 60 points and placed 12th in the 32-team field. Cornell won the event with 164 points, in front of Minnesota (151.5), Indiana (131.5), Edinboro (87.5) and Virginia (96.5).
“We have a lot of work to do and we’re certainly not content with the final results at all of our weight classes,” said Army head coach Chuck Barbee. “We want to do better. We need to get back in the room, make corrections, get tougher and raise our intensity even more. The whole team wrestled hard. Guys need to keep making jumps and making improvements. We can’t be satisfied with winning a match; we need to get on the podium.”
Kyler secured two major decisions early Wednesday to move into the finals where he claimed the individual championship when Cesar Grajales of Pennsylvania injury defaulted.
Ranked 10th in the latest InterMat rankings, Kyler secured a 17-7 major decision against John Nicholson of Old Dominion followed by a 15-7 major decision over Torsten Gillespie of Edinboro to advance to the finals.
Kyler jumped out to a 5-1 in the third period when Grajales defaulted at the 5:22 mark.
“Matt wrestled hard,” said Barbee. “He has been working on fundamentals and doing the little things right and that certainly added up. He paid attention to the details and was rewarded.”
Thome, a freshman, moved into the semifinals with a hard-fought 8-6 win against Zac Stevens of Michigan. Thome faced Jayson Ness of Minnesota, ranked second in the latest InterMat poll, in the semifinals but injury defaulted, ending his tournament run. Thome, who did not compete in his consolation bout, finished sixth in the event.
“Jordan is wrestling really well,” said Barbee. “Any time you put a freshman out there, you never know how he is going to respond. Jordan shows up at game time and loves to compete. It wasn’t a huge surprise how well he wrestled but he was certainly exciting to watch before he was hurt.”
Three other Army wrestlers competed during the second day of the 10-mat event. Casey Thome was edged in his quarterfinal bout at 141 pounds by Germane Lindsey of Ohio, 3-2, and then fell in the consolation bracket to Zack Kemmerer of Pennsylvania, 8-3.
Nicholas Bundy, who wrestled four times on Tuesday in the 141-pound division, lost his consolation bout to Ivan Lopouchanski of UNC Greensboro, 7-4.
Jimmy Rafferty posted a 4-1 mark at 149 pounds during the first day but lost to Savva Kostis of Appalachian State, 13-4.
Army will return to dual meet action next week, hosting four matches. On Friday, Army will host Hofstra at 7:30 p.m. at Gillis Field House and then welcome Merchant Marine Academy, Boston University and Rutgers for a Sunday quad-meet at Christl Arena. Wrestling Sunday gets underway at 2 p.m.
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