Iowa State will be sending all nine of their wrestlers through to day two of the NCAA tournament, with two of those wrestlers going a perfect 2-0 and reaching their bracket’s quarterfinals. Both Jarrett Degen (149) and Sammy Colbray (184) are now within one win of All-American status.
Degen’s day started off with a big 14-3 major decision victory against Russell Rohlfing of Cal State Bakersfield. He followed that with a tighter 11-8 win over the #9 seed Justin Oliver of North Carolina State in the second round. Tomorrow morning he will face his toughest test yet when he takes on the bracket’s top seed Anthony Ashnault of Rutgers.
Joining Degen in the quarterfinals is the #10 seed Sammy Colbray, who looked good in his opening 8-2 victory over conference foe Jackson Hemauer of Fresno State. He followed that with a win over another conference opponent Dakota Geer of Oklahoma State. Greer is viewed as being underseeded coming in at #26 due him spending a majority of the season wrestling 197 pounds. Colbray managed to defeat Greer 7-4, and will be favored in his next match against #15 Chip Ness of North Carolina.
Two other Cyclones managed a first round victory, but dropped their round two bout which placed them into the consolation bracket. Gomez started strong blanking Brandon Paetzall of Lehigh, 10-0 in round one at 133 pounds. He then ran into #2 seed Mickey Phillippi of Pittsburgh and lost that match by the score of 2-1. Gomez will face Josh Terao of American in the next round.
The other Iowa State wrestler winning in round one was 197-pound star Willie Miklus who defeated Joshua Roetman of Navy 6-1, but was then upset by Purdue’s Christian Brunner in the next match 4-2. Miklus will have Bucknell’s Drew Phipps in the next round.
Alex Mackall fell by major decision, 10-1 to Sean Fausz in round one, but was able to rebound with a fall over Iowa native Bryce West on the backside to stay alive at 125 pounds. Up next for the Iowa State lightweight will be MAC standout Drew Hildebrandt of Central Michigan.
We knew coming into the tournament that Ian Parker’s first opponent was going to be a dog fight, but the sophomore fell by fall in the second period to Nebraska’s Chad Red. He rebounded with a fall of his own over Rutgers Pete Lapari. Tomorrow he will see Big 12 foe Kaid Brock, a wrestler he defeated earlier this season when they met fin the dual.
Junior Chase Straw opened his tournament with a very tough Steve Bleise who was the #10 seed for Minnesota at 157 pounds. Bleise downed Straw 9-1 in round one which put Straw in the consolation bracket early. It looked as though Straw would be headed for an early exit as Quincy Monday of Princeton had him doubled up 8-4 at one point of their match, but the Cyclone wrestler stormed back tot tie his match at 12-12 and force overtime. After a scoreless sudden victory Straw was able to ride the full tiebreakers period and then get his escape to come away with a 13-12 victory.
He will be thrown back into the fire right away as his bracket’s #8 seed Josh Humphreys of Lehigh fell victim to upset and will be his next opponent.
Another Cyclone NCAA rookie that took a round one loss, but was then able to respond was freshman Marcus Coleman at 174 pounds. After dropping an 8-2 decision to Duke’s Matt Finesilver, Coleman rebounded by dropping Jacob Oliver of Edinboro 9-4 to stay alive in his bracket. Next, he will face former Virginia Tech All-American David McFadden who came in as the #6 seed.
Cyclone sophomore Gannon Gremmel fell in his first bout to Demetrius Thomas of Pittsburgh by the score of 11-7, but was able to come back and defeat Stanford’s Haydin Maley, 7-3 to remain alive at heavyweight. Tomorrow he will take on Maryland’s Yousiff Hemida.