NCAA Wrestling thread

[Al DeFlorio]

Leen wins his 157 semifinal 9-2.  Finals tomorrow night on ESPN.  Leen faces #2 Poeta from Illinois.

Anceravage wins in the consolation round 2-0 and guarantees top 8 finish and All-American.

Lewnes loses to #1 seed Tannenbaum of Michigan, goes into consys

Summary:  Leen in finals; Grey, Lewnes, and Anceravage alive in consys wrestling for 3rd through 8th spots; all are All-Americans

[ugarte]

[quote Al DeFlorio]Leen wins his 157 semifinal 9-2.  Finals tomorrow night on ESPN.  Leen faces #2 Poeta from Illinois.

Anceravage wins in the consolation round 2-0 and guarantees top 8 finish and All-American.

Lewnes loses to #1 seed Tannenbaum of Michigan, goes into consys

Summary:  Leen in finals; Grey, Lewnes, and Anceravage alive in consys wrestling for 3rd through 8th spots; all are All-Americans[/quote]
There was one more round of wrestlebacks and both Anceravage and Grey won, Grey by coming from behind and then decking the #7 seed from Navy, Baker (who beat him at EIWA). Anceravage never trailed and won by a comfortable (but not major) decision.

Leen can finish no worse than 2d; Anceravage, Grey and Lewnes can finish no worse than 6th. And we got great performances from Rodriguez and Frey (who earned us some bonus points), even though they didn't make AA.

Cornell currently stands in 9th place heading into the final day:

1 102.0 Iowa 
2  71.0 Ohio State 
3  68.0 Iowa State
4  63.0 Penn State
5  61.5 Central Michigan
6  61.0 Michigan
7  58.0 Nebraska
   58.0 Oklahoma State
9  57.5 Cornell 
10 56.5 Minnesota

[ugarte]

Tomorrow's matches:

Consy:
133: #7 Grey opens up against #1 Gomez (Mich. St.). The other consolation semifinal is between #2 Kennedy (Ill.) and #8 Reiter (Minn.) The winners wrestle for 3d place; the losers wrestle for 5th. Possible revenge?: Kennedy barely beat Grey earlier in the tournament.

165: #4 Lewnes opens up against #10 Cannon (American). The other consolation semifinal is #3 Marable (Mizzou) vs. #8 Fay (N, Iowa). The winners wrestle for 3d place; the losers wrestle for 5th.

174: #11 Anceravage opens up against #4 Borschel (Iowa). The other consolation semifinal is between #3 Browne (Neb.) and #5 Sinnott (Cent. Mich.) The winners wrestle for 3d place; the losers wrestle for 5th. Possible revenge?: Browne barely beat Anceravage earlier in the tournament.

Championship:

157: #8 Leen wrestles #2 Poeta (Illinois) for the NCAA title.

[ugarte]

Rough day for Cornell so far, going 1-5 in the consolation bracket. A lot of the matches were close, but our guys weren't able to get that one last takedown to win.

At 133, #7 Grey lost back to back to #1 Gomez (6-4) and #8 Reiter (10-7). Grey finishes in 6th place, outperforming his seed.

At 165, #4 Lewnes dominated #10 Cannon and finished him with a pin. He lost the 3d place match to #3 Marable 3-2. Lewnes finishes in 4th place, meeting his seed.

At 174, #11 Anceravage was dominated by #4 Borschel, who finished by pinning him at 6:30. In the 5th place match, he lost to #5 Sinnott 3-2. Anceravage finishes in 6th place, outperforming his seed.

After the morning session, Cornell sits in 9th place, just ahead of Minnesota. Each school has one wrestler in the finals, so if Leen wins, we'll finish ahead of the Gophers (unless, I guess, the Gopher WBF).

[Jacob '06]

The Lewnes 3rd-4th match really should've ended with a stall call on the other guy. Lewnes just kept going after him trying to get the takedown and the other guy was running and sprawling. Thats the only match I managed to catch this morning on ESPNU.

[Jacob '06]

Leen wins the championship. He pulled it out by 1 point at the end when the other guy cut him to try for a takedown with a minute to go and didn't succeed.

[CM cWo 44]

Very good match... someone should have pointed out that it's on ESPN live. Oh well.

[ugarte]

Leen wins 5-4. Poeta had to let him go early, because if he tried to turn him he risked Leen getting the escape with no time for a TD.

Jordan wrestled a great match and wins the National Championship!

Cornell finished with 4 All-Americans for the fourth year in a row and closes the championship in 9th place.

Congratulations to the All-Americans:

Jordan Leen - 1st (157)
Mack Lewnes - 4th (165)
Steve Anceravage - 6th (174)
Mike Grey - 6th (133)

Fantastic year for the Big Red - and next year could be even better. Two-time All-American Troy Nickerson will return (probably at 133); All-American Grey (probably at 141); Frey at 149; Two-time All-American and returning National Champion Leen at 157; All-American Lewnes at 165; All-American Anceravage at 174; Kerber at 184; 2007 All-American Arnone back at 197; and Zach Hammond, who was in line to be seeded for All-American this year before his injury back at Hwt.

I don't know much about Perelli at 125, but we have at least 8 that can get All-American next year. I can hardly wait.

[Jordan 04]

Although 90% of their viewers are probably wrestling fans, it would have been nice if ESPN had attempted to educate those not used to watching wrestling about some rules and strategy of the competition.

It was difficult to watch having no clue what was going on at any given time.

[mnagowski]

I'm not completely up to speed on the scoring, and I'm certain that somebody could fill us all in much better, but I think the basic idea is that you get points for takedowns, escapes, and substantial "riding time". Leen's competitor knew that he couldn't win the match unless he tried to get an additional takedown, so he gave Leen the additional one point escape. The strategy didn't work out all that well for him.

[Jacob '06]

[quote metaezra]I'm not completely up to speed on the scoring, and I'm certain that somebody could fill us all in much better, but I think the basic idea is that you get points for takedowns, escapes, and substantial "riding time". Leen's competitor knew that he couldn't win the match unless he tried to get an additional takedown, so he gave Leen the additional one point escape. The strategy didn't work out all that well for him.[/quote]

You get 2 points for a takedown (essentially establishing full control over both his legs while down on the mat), and 1 point for an escape (returning to the position the match started at, both on your feet facing each other). Generally when you are at a high level of competition, an escape is a given within a certain amount of time b/c it is very difficult to keep someone down. Leen's opponent knew Leen would likely escape (he had already done it relatively quickly in the match), so he gave up the 1 point in hopes of getting 2 for a takedown before the match ended. You don't even want me to start getting in to the stalling and fleeing the mat rules as it gets complicated. I feel like it is a sport that only people who have wrestled or had children that wrestled watch on TV.

[ugarte]

As Jacob said, you get 2 for a takedown and one for an escape.

If you expose the opponent's back to the mat, you can get anywhere from 2 to 4 points (called a near-fall). If you force the opponent onto their back and hold the position, of course, it is a pin (or fall) and the match is over.

While one wrestler is in control (after a takedown or if starting a period on top), he accumulates "riding time." If a wrestler finishes regulation with a net riding time advantage of 1 minute or more, that is worth 1 point.

Penalty points can be awarded for stalling (after a warning), for fleeing the mat (as happened in the Leen match) or for a false start (after a warning). (Any others, Jacob?) These are purely at the ref's discretion - a lot of internet chatter (including from Jacob above) suggested that the ref swallowed his whistle in Lewnes' third place match, and cost him a shot at overtime.

OT is a 1 minute sudden death period, followed by two 30 second non-sudden death periods in which each wrestler gets to choose position. If, after two cycles the match is still tied, the wrestler with the riding time advantage wins the match (as happened in the 184 final).

[Jacob '06]

You can also get penalty points for things like illegal headlocks and full nelsons, but these are incredibly rare in the college game.

[ugarte]

[quote Jacob '06]You can also get penalty points for things like illegal headlocks and full nelsons, but these are incredibly rare in the college game.[/quote]
Now that you mention it, I think Lewnes may have gotten a warning (or a penalty point?) in one of his matches for locking hands.

[ugarte]

[quote CM cWo 44]Very good match... someone should have pointed out that it's on ESPN live. Oh well.[/quote]
If you still want to see it, a lot of the tournament is on YouTube (for now). Here is a search for jordan leen: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jordan+leen&search_type=