Gary will be returning with a new blog on May 4. This week, he’s asked RCN’s Jim Best to guest blog. Viewers should recognize Jim from RCN-TV’s coverage of high school wrestling.
St. Louis, MO…home of the Gateway Arch, the Cardinals, riverboats, ribs, Budweiser beer, and in 2015 the NCAA Division 1 Wrestling Championships. The Scottrade Center, a beautiful facility which plays host to a variety of indoor athletic events, was the site of the championships this past March. If you are a passionate wrestling fan like me, the Scottrade Center was the place to be for some of the most action-packed wrestling in my memory.
The storylines heading into the tournament were numerous. For one, a young man from Ohio State, Logan Stieber, was taking aim to win his fourth consecutive title. Up to this point in time, only three other wrestlers in the history of the tournament were able to achieve the status of “4-timer!” (Pat Smith from Oklahoma State, Cael Sanderson from Iowa State, and Kyle Dake from Cornell). This particular storyline hit home with many local fans because Stieber’s first championship (his freshman year) included a very controversial win in the finals over Jordan Oliver from Oklahoma State. Jordan is a product of the great Easton wrestling program. In addition to the Logan Stieber story, the team championship title was “wide open” because any one of approximately eight teams had the potential to earn enough points to win the team title. The traditional powers like Iowa, Oklahoma State, Minnesota and Penn State were certainly in the mix. However, the contenders this year also included Cornell, Ohio State, and the tiny Pennsylvania wrestling power of Edinboro. Last, but certainly not least, the seedings of individual wrestlers in certain weight classes left many diehard wrestling fans scratching their heads and saying, “How did this happen?” For example, at 125 pounds (the lightest weight class in NCAA competition), the two-time defending champion, Jesse Delgado from Illinois, entered the tournament unseeded! Granted, he had missed most of the competitive season due to an injury, so his win-loss record was less than stellar, but for a defending champion to enter the tournament unseeded…that is one tough weight class! Another head scratcher occurred at the 149-pound weight class as Josh Kindig, a Blue Mountain product now wrestling for Oklahoma State, also entered the tournament unseeded. Josh was a runner-up in 2014, and, adding insult to injury, not only was he unseeded, but he was also paired against the third-seeded wrestler in the first round! All of the seeding quandaries made for a high level of fan anticipation for the first round of wrestling.
The tournament unfolded over a three-day time period. Similar to the NCAA basketball tournament, brackets for each of ten weight classes are pre-determined by “seeds”. Each weight class has 32-35 qualifying wrestlers, and the first round of wrestling begins on a Thursday morning. Unlike the March Madness basketball tournament, every competitor who qualifies for the tournament has the chance to wrestle at least two matches due to a full consolation bracket. In each round, with the exception of the Saturday morning round (that round is all consolation bracket matches), a championship round is contested, and at least one consolation bracket round is contested, with the exception of the championship finals on Saturday evening. Local wrestlers who qualified for the tournament this year included Zeke Moisey (Bethlehem Catholic/West Virginia University), Ethan Lizak (Parkland/Minnesota), Zach Horan (Nazareth/Central Michigan), Randy Cruz (Bethlehem Catholic/Lehigh), Josh Kindig (Blue Mountain/Oklahoma State), Mitch Minotti (Easton/Lehigh), and Elliot Riddick (Bethlehem Catholic/Lehigh). I am sure that I missed a few names in that mix, and I apologize greatly to those wrestlers, mainly because I know, from personal experience, how hard it is to qualify for that tournament, and every wrestler in the tournament deserves special recognition!
Of the local wrestlers, Zeke Moisey was the Cinderella story of the tournament. As a true freshman, Zeke entered the weight class unseeded at the 125-pound weight class. After upsetting three highly seeded wrestlers in the championship round, and bringing over 18,000 cheering wrestling fans to their feet in the process, Zeke made his way into the championship finals. In the finals, he ran into a familiar foe, a redshirt freshman from Ohio State, and Zeke fell just short of becoming an NCAA champion when he lost a hard-fought battle in the finals. Mitch Minotti also achieved All-American status at 157 pounds with an eighth-place finish. Mitch wrestled through injuries for the entire tournament, and ended up have to forfeit his final match, for seventh place, due to medical reasons. All of the local wrestlers competed well, and all are continuing to maintain District XI’s reputation as one of the “toughest wrestling districts in the country.”
At the conclusion of the tournament, Logan Stieber did make wrestling history by winning his fourth title, and Ohio State walked away with their first ever team title. As I have described to some of my non-wrestling friends and colleagues, attending that tournament is the equivalent to a football fan attending the Superbowl, or a college basketball fan attending the Final Four-it just doesn’t get any better in terms of action and atmosphere. For three days in March, approximately 18,000 diehard wrestling fans converge at the site of the championships to watch the best college wrestlers in the country compete against each other, and then we get to meet at the local eating establishments, in between the rounds of wrestling, to discuss and relive the most exciting moments over a burger and some cold beverages…it truly is a “live, eat and breath” wrestling experience! Next year, the Big Apple (New York City), will play host to the tournament when wrestlers, coaches and fans will flock to Madison Square Garden to grapple in the garden for an NCAA championship. I’m counting down the days!