Former UNI Panther and last years 3rd place winner at the NCAA tournament Joe Colon won the 57KG Freestyle weight class at this years Bill Farrell International Tournament, beating Dan Mitchell 13-6 in the finals.
The tournament, previously known as the NYAC Tournament, changed it’s name this year in honor of the late NYAC Wrestling chairman and the 1972 Olympic Head Coach Bill Farrell. The 1972 team had one of the best performances in Olympic history, and was the team that Dan Gable won gold with.
Colon was one of three former Panthers wrestling at the tournament, the other two being Cruse Aarhus and Brett Robbins. Aarhus went 0-2 on the day, falling to Andrew Hochstrasser and Ulukbek Zholdoshbekov, both by tech fall. Robbins won his first match, 4-0 over Cole VonOhlen of Air Force, before dropping his next two to Murad Nukhkadiev and Joseph McKenna.
Nobody could stop Colon today though, his closest match was a 7-4 decision in the semifinals against Brandon Precin. In the opening round he won by tech fall, 12-2 over Eric Morrill, then beat the new redshirt Nico Megaludis 14-8. After the semifinal with Precin, Colon went on to beat Mitchell in his final bout of the day.
Other place winners from Iowa included Deron Winn, who placed second at 86KG, Jon Reader, 3rd at 86KG, and Matt Gibson, 3rd at 97KG. Winn lost to Richard Perry 5-4 in the final, while Reader beat Austin Trotman 10-2, and Gibson won by fall over Jesse Flores to claim third at their respective weights. All three wrestlers are former Cyclones.
Former Hawkeyes Montell Marion and Derek St. John were in action today as well. Marion wrestled at 65KG and won by tech fall 14-1 in his first match of the day, beating Michael Mitchell. He lost his second match to Reece Humphrey, 8-6, but bounced back with a 8-5 win over Ganbayar Sanjaa in the consolation bracket. He dropped his second match of the day after that to Shikhaid Dzhalilov, 9-4.
St. John had a similar day, winning his opening match over Pedro Soto 10-4, then dropping his next to Adam Hall 7-1. He would not win in the consolations however, dropping a 10-7 decision to Vladyslav Dombrovsky.
[…] should come as little surprise that Joe Colon has been named our WoW after his performance at the Bill Farrell open Sunday. Colon made his debut at 57 KG, after spending time up at 61 KG, and he made a spectacular show of […]