Jacori Teemer at U23's (Photo/Sam Janicki; SJanickiPhoto.com)Although the calendar read late May, there was plenty of action on the collegiate front over the weekend. The U23 National Championships took place in Lincoln, Nebraska and featured plenty of heavy hitters. Wrestlers in freestyle and Greco-Roman vied for a spot on the U23 World Team and with it a trip to the world championships in Belgrade, Serbia.
Our conference correspondent team has highlighted some of the notable performances from each of their respective conferences.
ACC by Robbie Wendell
ACC wrestling had a successful weekend at U23 Nationals, highlighted by two champions. Four schools sent wrestlers to Lincoln--Duke, North Carolina, Pittsburgh and Virginia. Wrestlers from Duke and UNC picked up some solid wins, but did not bring home any hardware last weekend. Pitt finished in 10th place as a team and had three placers, led by Nino Bonaccorsi, winning the title at 92kg. Bonaccorsi fought through a tough semifinal match against Cam Caffey and beat Rocky Elam in two straight bouts in the finals. Also on the podium for the Panthers, Mick Burnett placed 7th at 65kg and Austin Cooley finished in 8th at 97kg.
UVA finished in 9th as a team with a 3rd place showing and a Champion. Michael Battista followed up a strong Senior World Team Trials performance with another podium finish. Battista fell to Chris Foca in the quarterfinals and wrestled back to take 3rd with a win over Jack Jessen. Jay Aiello put on an excellent performance all weekend--he didn't surrender a takedown in the entire tournament. Aiello beat Samuel Mitchell in two straight matches in the finals to bring home the title. Aiello and Bonaccorsi will represent the USA at the U23 World Championship in Belgrade, Serbia.
Big Ten by Cody Goodwin
The freestyle side of the U23 national championships, held last weekend at Nebraska's Bob Devaney Sports Center, kinda sorta turned into a Big Ten showcase.
Five Big Ten wrestlers ultimately made the 10-man U23 freestyle world team when the competition concluded Saturday afternoon. Another made the Greco-Roman world team, and a dozen more turned in top-four podium finishes over the weekend.
The two-day freestyle tournament is where the Big Ten mostly shined. Northwestern's Chris Cannon (61 kilos), Nebraska's Peyton Robb (74) and Mikey Labriola (79) and Iowa's Myles Wilson (86) and Tony Cassioppi (125) all made the world team.
Cannon rolled through the preliminary rounds with four wins by a combined 47-14 to make the finals, punctuated by a 13-8 win over Michigan's Dylan Ragusin in the semifinals, during which he rallied from a 5-2 first-period hole to outscore Ragusin 11-3 in the second period to win the match.
In the finals, Cannon won a three-match thriller over Indiana high school star Jesse Mendez. He scored a big 4-pointer to win the first match, 13-2, then Mendez used a strong first-period to anchor a 9-8 second-match victory. Mendez then injury-defaulted early in the third match, giving Cannon the title and the world team spot.
The Husker duo of Robb and Labriola dominated their way to world team spots.
At 74 kilos, Robb won each of his first four matches by 10-0 tech fall and defeated them in a combined 3 minutes, 42 seconds of total match time. In the finals, Robb swept North Carolina's Quincy Monday, two matches to none, by scores of 12-3 and 7-5.
Labriola had to muscle his way to the title at 79. In the challenge tournament, he beat Grand View All-American Casey Randles, 7-3; Illinois's DJ Shannon, 6-0; and Indiana's Junior world-teamer Donnell Washington, 5-3, thanks to five points in the final minute. He downed Drexel's Michael O'Malley, 2-2 and 5-2, in the finals for the spot.
The Hawkeye duo took identical paths to the top of the podium by rolling through their respective challenge tournaments, then winning three-match finals series.
Wilson won his first four matches by a combined 44-7, then needed three matches to defeat Cornell's Chris Foca in the finals. Wilson took the first match, 6-1. In match two, Foca turned an 8-6 first-period lead into a 19-8 technical fall victory. In the decisive third match, Wilson scored five unanswered in the second period to win, 5-4.
Cassioppi, the runner-up at last month's Senior freestyle national championships, blew through his first four matches by a combined 45-0, which included a 13-0 win over Hofstra's Zach Knighton-Ward and an 11-0 win over Lehigh's Jordan Wood.
In the finals, Cassioppi defeated another Big Ten foe, Northwestern's Lucas Davison, two matches to one. He scored a first-match pin off a takedown midway through the first period. Davison won the second match, 14-4, thanks to a second-period explosion. Cassioppi won the third, 13-5, thanks to nine unanswered points.
Those five were the highlight, obviously, but other Big Ten wrestlers turned in promising performances as well.
Ragusin ultimately bounced back to take third at 61 kilos, defeating Iowa's Cullan Schriever in the third-place match. Minnesota's Brayton Lee (70), Iowa's Patrick Kennedy (79) and Ohio State's Gavin Hoffman (97) all took third. Washington, Northwestern's Jack Jessen (86) and Illinois' Luke Luffman (125) all took fourth.
On the Greco side, Ohio State's Nick Boykin followed his Senior national title with a U23 title at 97 kilos. Two more Buckeyes, Brady and Dylan Koontz, both made the finals at 55 and 60 kilos, respectively. Illinois' We Rachal took third at 63 kilos.
The Big Ten has long dominated college wrestling, both in terms of national team titles and individual talent. The league's performance in Nebraska this past weekend was just another sterling example.
Big 12 by Seth Duckworth
Seth's article for OWrestler regarding Oklahoma
Oklahoma State's Luke Surber 3rd at 92 KG and Jalin Harper got 4th at 74 KG. Surber beat Michigan State's Cam Caffey and only lost to All-American Jake Woodley, who he placed higher than (Woodley 6th). It could be interesting to see what Oklahoma State does with him and AJ Ferrari in the next few years. Surber going to cut to 184? Is Ferrari serious about maybe going to HWT?
New Big 12 addition Missouri had a pair of finalists with Brock Mauller at 70 kg and Rocky Elam at 92 kg.
Utah Valley's Taylor LaMont was a finalist in both styles. He finished second in freestyle and won the world team spot in Greco-Roman. LaMont's former Utah Valley teammate, Dylan Gregerson, also claimed a place on the world team by edging Dylan Koontz in a pair of hard-fought bouts.
A pair of big men from the Big 12 battled for the 130 kg slot on the Greco team. North Dakota State's Brandon Metz pinned Spencer Trenary in the first of their two finals bout. He later shut out his South Dakota State rival, Trenary, 5-0, to win the series.
EIWA
We've talked about the EIWA's struggles at the 2021 NCAA Tournament, but the conference was in full force at U23's. Patrick Glory led the way by making the freestyle world team at 57 kgs. Glory did not surrender a point to All-American Taylor LaMont during either of their two finals bouts. Quincy Monday (NJRTC/Princeton), Michael O'Malley (Penn RTC/Drexel), and Chris Foca (Spartan Combat/Cornell) all made the finals. Foca took the second match of his series, but fell in the decisive contest.
Lenny Merkin (NJRTC/Princeton) was also a finalist at 74 kg on the Greco side.
MAC by Courtney Woods
Sam Mitchell, the lone MAC podium representative from the Bulls Wrestling Club, had a noteworthy performance at U23's with a second-place finish at 97kg. In the opening bout, Mitchell had a solid win over Cole Forrester from the Air Force Regional Training Center (13-0). In the semifinals, Mitchell came out on top over Peter Ming from Stanford-CA RTC (10-0). During the Best-of-Three Finals, Mitchell came up short in both matches against a three-time national qualifier Jay Aiello from the Cavalier Wrestling Club (11-0, 11-0).
During the 2020-2021 folkstyle season, Mitchell had a 3-6 overall record, and was 3-4 in MAC duals. Mitchell scored 11 takedowns during those nine bouts. He had notable wins over Clarion's Brett Whitman and Bloomsburg's Jake Marnell.
Pac-12 by Earl Smith
Jacori Teemer led the way for Arizona State/Sunkist Kids as he made the U23 World Team at 70 kg. This will be Teemer's second appearance on a world team as he was a bronze medalist as a Cadet in 2017. Teemer prevailed in perhaps the deepest weight class in the tournament. After cruising through his first three bouts, Teemer faced two-time Junior National freestyle champion Anthony Artalona. It was more of the same as Teemer won via tech, 11-0. In the semis, Teemer met up with longtime rival Brayton Lee. After a long break for a video review late in the second, Teemer immediately scored the decisive takedown with a blast double and held on to win, 7-7. The Sun Devil All-American clinched his spot on the world team after taking a pair of bouts from Missouri's Brock Mauller. In the second match, Mauller jumped out to an early 6-0 lead, but Teemer chipped away for a 9-8 victory.
On the Greco-Roman front, junior Chad Porter made the finals with ease after picking up a pair of tech fall victories. Porter was a U23 World Team member in 2019, after making the Junior team in 2018. Another world team wasn't in the cards this weekend, as Chad was teched in two straight matches by Nicholas Boykin.
The newly formed Central Coast RTC (Cal Poly) saw one of its wrestlers make the best-of-three finals as Lawrence Saenz did so at 65 kg. Saenz truly had a breakthrough showing as he downed a pair of top 141 lbers to wrestle in the finals. In the second round, Saenz grabbed a 4-4 win on criteria over Allan Hart, the sixth seed at the 2021 NCAA Championships. A match later, he survived an early onslaught from three-time All-American, Chad Red, and rallied back to win 13-8. Saenz also finished strong in the Round of 16 and semifinals against, Cayden Rooks and Justin Benjamin. Saenz wasn't able to generate any offense in either of his two 10-0 losses to Dom Demas for the slot on the world team.
The Central Coast RTC had a pair of wrestlers with solid performances though they ultimately came up shy of the podium. Antonio Lorenzo went 3-2 at 57 kg, while Brawley Lamer was 4-2 at 74 kg.
SoCon
Only a small contingent traveled to Nebraska from the SoCon. Appalachian State had a trio of wrestlers at the tournament. Caleb Smith, Jonathan Millner, and Michael Burchell all won at least two matches but did not place.
Campbell's Jason Kraisser got a 10-0 tech over 2021 national qualifier Luke Nichter in his opening match, but then lost the next two.
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