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Northwestern Wins 2011 Keystone Classic
NU's 140 points dominates team competition, Levi Mele places first at 125 lbs.
PHILADELPHIA,
Pa. - Northwestern won the 2011 Keystone Classic Sunday in
Philadelphia, Pa., and overpowered the 11-team field, finishing with
140 team points, 43 points ahead of runner-up Appalachian State.
Levi
Mele won his second title at 125 lbs. in as many weeks and improved to
10-0 on the season with four wins at the Keystone Classic. Mele, who
had three pins at last week's Michigan State Open, added two more falls
Sunday en route to the finals.
Lee Munster (second, 174), Mike
McMullan (second, heavyweight), Jameson Oster (third, 133), Kaleb
Friedley (third, 149), Pierce Harger (fourth, 165), Alex Polizzi
(fourth 197), Dylan Marriott (fifth, 157), Pat Greco (fifth, 141),
Colin Shober (sixth, 141), Kevin Bialka (sixth, 165) and John Schoen
(sixth, 197) also placed Sunday.
"Our team is improving each
time we compete," Northwestern head coach Drew Pariano said. " We are
perfectionists and the results are not always to our liking, but if we
battle and fight for points, the guys can feel good about their effort."
A weight-by-weight recap of Northwestern's results can be found below:
125
Top-seeded
Levi Mele won three-straight bouts with bonus points to reach the
finals. Mele opened up with a 13-0 major decision over Rider's Mark
Maestrey, pinned Boston University's Ryan Dowd in 6:47 and had another
fall in 1:46 against Harvard's Joseph Barbato. Mele met No. 2 seed
Garret Frey from Princeton in the finals and he took home his second
tournament title in as many weeks, defeating Frey 8-3.
133
Two
Northwestern wrestlers competed at 133 lbs. John Coukos faced
top-seeded (and No. 15 in the country) Bryan Ortenzio from Penn in the
opening round and fell 9-1. He then met his own teammate, Jameson Oster
in the consolation bracket and Oster pinned Coukos in 2:01 to stay
alive in the wrestlebacks.
Oster opened the day against No. 2
seed (and 20th ranked) Steven Keith and fell 9-0. After his bout
against Coukous, he upset three seeded wrestlers to place third. Oster
pinned No. 6 seed Chris Johnson from Appalachian State in 4:16,
defeated Princeton's No. 4 Christopher Perez 11-5 and pinned Duke's No.
3 Brandon Gambucci in 2:09 in the third-place bout.
141
Colin
Shober and Pet Greco both wrestled at 141 lbs. for Northwestern and
reached the consolation semifinals. Shober was the No. 5 seed and edged
Boston University's Tyler Scotton 7-6 in his first match before falling
to No. 4 seed Adam Krop (Princeton), 3-1. Shober then had a 12-2 major
decision over Acton Pifer from Appalachian State, defeated VMI's Zeb
Stewart 10-3 and faced No. 2 seed Mike Kessler (Appalachian State) in
the consolation semifinals. Kessler won 4-0, bouncing Shober to the
fifth place match against his teammate and Greco took fifth due to a
medical forfeit for Shober.
Greco dropped his opening round
match 7-3 to Kessler but won four-straight bouts, including one in
sudden victory, to reach the consolation semifinals. Greco defeated
Duke's Chris Mullin 14-12, Harvard's Alexis Wagener in a 12-3 major
decision, Penn's No. 6 seed Mark Pinero 5-2 and Princeton's Robert
Shepherd 10-8 in sudden victory. In the consolation semifinals Greco
was pinned in 3:52 by Kropp.
149
Kaleb Friedley earned the
top seed at 149 and pinned his first two opponents in less than a
minute. He opened the day pinning VMI's Luke Todd in 45 seconds and
stuck Princeton's Zachary Bintliff in 48 seconds. Friedley then met No.
4 seed Stephen Robertson from Penn and was edged 3-2 in the semifinals.
In the consolation semifinals Friedley defeated Harvard's No. 3 Paul
Liguori 10-5 and beat American's No. 6 seed Kevin Tao 5-4 to finish
third.
157
Dylan Marriott represented NU at 157 lbs. and
wrestled his way back to a fifth place finish. He began with a 5-0 loss
to No. 2 seed Giuseppi Lanzi from Brown, but won three-straight for a
rematch with Lanzi in the consolation semifinals. Marriott registered a
20-2 tech fall over Matt Rubin (Boston University), a 13-4 major
decision over Ted Gottwald (VMI) and 6-4 decision over Frank Crocco
(Rider) before facing Lanzi again. Marriott fell 4-0 and placed fifth
as Boston's No. 4 Nick Tourville forfeited the fifth-place match.
165
Kevin
Bialka and Pierce Harger both wrestled their way to the semifinals.
Second-seeded Harger won his first three bounds, including two with
pins in the first period and a major decision, before meeting No. 3
seed Lorenzo Thomas from Penn in the semis. Harger narrowly missed a
chance to wrestle in the finals as Thomas emerged with the 9-8 victory.
In the wrestlebacks, Harger needed extra time to defeat Boston's No. 4
Kyle Czarnecki 5-2 in the second sudden victory to reach the third
place bout and took fourth, falling 5-4 to Rider's No. 6 James Brundage.
Fifth-seeded
Bialka defeated Zachary Agostino (Penn) by a 12-2 major decision and
upset No. 4 seed Kyle Czarneck (Boston) 5-3, but fell 8-2 to top-seeded
(and No. 19 in the country) Kyle Blevins from Appalachian State. Bialka
fell 10-5 to Brundage in the consolation semifinals and finished sixth
with a medical forfeit.
174
Lee Munster and Robert Kellogg
competed at 174 lbs. Munster, the No. 2 seed, won three-straight bouts
to earn a spot in the finals. He shut out Duke's Randy Roden 7-0 in the
first round, majored Appalachian State's Jake Johnson 9-1 and defeated
No. 3 seed Ian Korb from Penn 10-6. In the finals, Munster met
top-seeded (No. 18) Jimmy Resnick from Rider. Munster took a 2-0 lead
at the end of the first period but Resnick had a quick escape and
takedown in the second. Munster added an escape of his own to tie the
score at 3-3 heading into the third period. He began the final period
down and added another escape to take the 4-3 lead, but Resnick
responded with a takedown. With riding time not a factor, Munster added
one last escape to end the period and tie the match 5-5 at the end of
regulation, sending the match to sudden victory. Munster then dropped
his first match of the day as Resnick took him down 22 seconds into
sudden victory.
Kellogg met Brown's Ricky McDonald in the first
round and fell 4-2. He then dropped his second match of the day,
falling 8-3 to Appalachian State's Nick Vetell.
184
Marcus
Shrewsbury represented NU at 184 lbs. and dropped two matches against
seeded wrestlers. He met No. 6 Daniel Santoro from Princeton first and
fell 4-1 and then faced No. 4 seed Tom Barreiro from American and was
eliminated from competition with a 6-2 decision.
197
Northwestern
had two seeded wrestlers at 197 lbs. with John Schoen and Alex Polizzi.
Schoen was seeded second and opened the day with a 4-3 decision over
Princeton's Kurt Brendel. Schoen missed a chance at the finals as No. 3
seed Sterling Hecox (Brown) won 5-3 in the semifinals. He dropped his
final two matches of the day to place sixth.
No. 5 seed Alex
Polizzi began the day pinning No. 4 seed James Fox from Harvard in 4:34
to meet top-seeded (No. 15) John Hall from Boston in the semis. Polizzi
dropped the semifinal match 8-2, but wrestled his way back to fourth,
pinning Rider's No. 6 Donald McNeil in 3:21 in the consolation semis,
but fell 8-5 to Harvard's No. 4 seed James Fox in the third place bout.
Hwt
Top-seeded
Mike McMullan dominated his opponents in his first three matches with a
tech fall and two pins. He began with a 17-0 shutout of Boston's Brad
Castronovo, pinned Appalachian State's Brock Durgee in 5:50 and had a
fall in 2:18 against No. 5 seed Evan Craig from Rider to meet Boston's
No. 3 Kevin Innis in the finals. After a scoreless first period,
McMullan got on the board first with an escape just six seconds into
the second. Innis then took down McMullan to go up 2-1 but McMullan
escaped again to tie the score at 2-2 heading into the third. Innis
started the third period down and added another escape for the 3-2
lead. McMullan attempted a last-second takedown but Innis blocked it to
hold on for the 3-2 lead as McMullan finished second.
NU junior
Jason Welch (157 lbs.) competes in the 46th annual NWCA All-Star
Classic tomorrow at the Wells Fargo Arena in Tempe, Ariz. The annual
exhibition begins at 8:30 p.m. CT. As a team, Northwestern is off from
competition until the NU Duals on Dec. 11. The Wildcats meet SIUE at 3
p.m. and Indianapolis at 5 p.m. in their first true home duals of the
season at Welsh-Ryan Arena.
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