Hokies sweep ACC wrestling season honors
GREENSBORO, N.C. – Virginia Tech swept the Atlantic Coast Conference’s season awards for the 2019 wrestling season, as national champion Mekhi Lewis earned ACC Wrestler of the Year honors, Mitch Moore was tabbed as the ACC Freshman of the Year and Tony Robie picked up ACC Coach of the Year accolades.
The annual awards are determined by a vote of the league’s head coaches. Lewis, a redshirt freshman from Bound Brook, N.J., became the first ACC student-athlete in a decade to be named the Most Outstanding Wrestler of the NCAA Championships after his remarkable run to the 165-pound national title March 21-23 in Pittsburgh. Seeded No. 8 in his weight class, Lewis defeated top-seeded Alex Marinelli of Iowa and No. 4 seed Evan Wick of Wisconsin en route to the 165 final. Lewis then defeated No. 2 seed and two-time NCAA champion Vincenzo Joseph of Penn State by a 7-1 margin to win Virginia Tech’s first-ever NCAA wrestling title and the 19th by an ACC wrestler.
Lewis’ NCAA gold medal capped a season in which he posted a 28-2 overall record, an unbeaten record against ACC opposition and claimed the 165-pound title in the ACC Championship on March 9 at Blacksburg, Virginia. Moore finished his true freshman campaign at 18-9 overall and earned All-ACC honors with a silver medal showing in the 141-pound weight class at the ACC Championship. Rest of the story and details at https://hokiesports.com/news/2019/4/1/hokies-sweep-acc-wrestling-season-honors.aspx?mc_cid=da705de3b7&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b
Dave Mariola Jr. steps down at Barberton to take over wrestling program at Walsh Jesuit
Dave Mariola Jr. will step down as Barberton wrestling coach after 20 seasons to take over the wrestling program at Walsh Jesuit. Mariola has 31 years of coaching experience. He is in his 28th year as a physical education and health teacher, and will remain a teacher at Barberton.
Previous Walsh coach Tom Milkovich will be on Mariola’s staff along with Louden Gordon, Louie Iacoboni and Larry Vance. Milkovich was a three-time high school Ohio state champion at Maple Heights, a four-time Big Ten champion at Michigan State with an undefeated record in conference matches, an NCAA champion and a veteran coach. “I am extremely proud and honored to be able to take the reins of this program and feel very blessed to have a staff including Tom Milkovich,” Mariola said. “Tom has been a longtime mentor and fried of mine in the sport of wrestling and it will be great to sit in the coaching chair next to him. Additionally, with Louden, Louie and Larry, who were all high school Ohio state champions and have many years of experience coaching wrestling, we feel that we will have one of the best high school wrestling staffs.”
Mariola won a Division II state title at 155 pounds during his senior year in 1983 at Bedford St. Peter Chanel High School, and proceeded to wrestle on scholarship at Michigan State before graduating in 1989. He received All-American honors as a redshirt sophomore in 1986 when he placed fifth at 177 pounds in the Division I national tournament. Mariola taught at Nordonia from 1994-1999 and was the Knights wrestling coach. He has an overall dual meet record of 302-129-2 (48-16-2 at Nordonia and 254-113-0 at Barberton). “When Dave Mariola arrived at BHS, he had seven wrestlers in the high school program and leaves the program with over 30 high school wrestlers, a strong middle school team and an organized and competitive youth program,” Barberton Athletic Director John Sabol said. “He has taken the Rest of the story in the Akron Beacon Journal at https://www.ohio.com/sports/20190331/high-school-notebook-dave-mariola-jr-steps-down-at-barberton-to-take-over-wrestling-program-at-walsh-jesuit?mc_cid=79c4ac01bf&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b
Relive the 2019 NCAA Championships with WIN Magazine’s Commemorative Issue
Here is your chance to relive all the exciting moments that took place at the 2019 NCAA Division I Nationals, which took place March 21-23 in Pittsburgh, Pa., in WIN Magazine’s 2019 NCAA Commemorative/Hodge Trophy Special issue (Vol. 25, Issue 6) that was printed April 5. WIN Magazine was there to cover a 25th straight tournament and is ready to bring you features on all ten individual champions as well as a breakdown how all the top teams did and Penn State’s fourth-straight team title and eighth in the past nine years. Rest of the story and details at http://www.win-magazine.com/current-past-issues/
Sesker Slant: Final thoughts on college season
By Craig Sesker For the Predicament
The 2019 NCAA Division I Championships are in the books and it was another successful event with sellout crowds and great competition. It was another exciting season with so many compelling story lines.
Here are my final thoughts on the college season:
What can you say about Iowa’s Spencer Lee? He had his share of doubters and detractors after losing three matches this season, but Lee showed he’s at his best on the big stage. The Cadet world champion and two-time Junior world champion delivered by earning his second straight NCAA title at 125 pounds. It will be interesting to see if he makes a run at the 2020 Olympic Team in freestyle.
David Taylor and Ed Ruth formed one of the best 1-2 punches during their fabulous careers at Penn State, but Bo Nickal and Jason Nolf were every bit as impressive during their careers for the Nittany Lions. Taylor and Ruth combined to lead PSU to four team titles while Nickal and Nolf also led Penn State to four gold trophies. No matter what team you cheer for, all of these guys wrestled an aggressive, entertaining style that was fun to watch. Nickal was my pick for the Hodge Trophy with Nolf coming in a close second. It was great to see Kevin Dresser’s Iowa State Cyclones bounce back with a strong season this year. He was named national coach of the year and ISU had two All-Americans after finishing second in the Big 12. This is just the beginning. The Cyclones are back and they will continue to improve.
Kudos to NAIA powerhouse Grand View. They keep winning national titles and they keep doing it in impressive fashion. It was a rough finish to the season for the Wartburg Knights, but the Knights will be back. You can count on that. Their program is too strong. One of the best stories that came out of the 2019 NCAAs was that of Northern Iowa senior Drew Foster. He never won a state title, wasn’t considered by many to be a Division I prospect and he nearly played college football. But Foster chose to wrestle at UNI, and made great strides for the Panthers under assistant coach Randy Pugh. Foster had been an All-American before, but virtually nobody was picking him to win a national title this year. Foster did an incredible job to cap his career with an NCAA title at 184 pounds. It was awesome to watch. Rest of the story at https://www.thepredicament.com/2019/03/sesker-slant-final-thoughts-on-college-season/?mc_cid=6106e1abe5&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b
Why Shouldn’t All Girls Have the Opportunity to Benefit From Wrestling?
By Shannyn Gillespie
As a former U.S. Olympic Education Center (Marquette, MI) women’s wrestling coach, the author’s charge was to ready & develop female wrestlers for the U.S. Olympic Training Center (Colorado Springs, CO), Jr. World Championships, & the World University Championships. This task was challenging largely because, at the time in 2005, there were only 2 sanctioned high school girls wrestling state championships to recruit from (most recruits were noticed at junior national championships). Fourteen years later, there are 6 sanctioned high school girls wrestling state championships…
To be certain, female wrestling worldwide and in the USA is slowly growing (around 17,000 US high school female participants) even though there are a low number of sanctioned high school girls wrestling state championships (6 as of 2019; 7 to add for 2020) or female only wrestling leagues (38+ college teams included in WCWA & NAIA). Despite this inequity, many females do wrestle and thrive in the sport. This article lists some of those successful female wrestlers who are also pioneers. These pioneers have added their perspective on how and why females deserve their own wrestling leagues plus girls-only wrestling state championships in the USA. Rest of the story and timeline at https://news.theopenmat.com/womens-wrestling/why-shouldnt-all-girls-have-the-opportunity-to-benefit-from-wrestling/72509?mc_cid=6106e1abe5&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b
Collegiate wrestling shines at PPG Paints Arena
Year in and year out, wrestlers from the WPIAL move on to the college ranks and dominate in the NCAA tournament like no other region in the country. This year was no different, only for one exception — they got to do it in front of their family, friends and hometown fans at PPG Paints Arena. For the first time in more than 60 years, the NCAA Division I wrestling championships — or as Iowa associate head coach and two-time world champion Terry Brands calls it, “The toughest tournament in the world” — returned to the mecca of amateur wrestling in Western Pennsylvania to showcase the sport’s brightest stars from all over the country.
Penn State did what it always does — win. The Nittany Lions have won four NCAA team championships in a row and eight out of the past nine. So did Spencer Lee, a three-time PIAA champion and three-time age-level world champion from Franklin Regional High School who has yet to lose a match at NCAAs in two trips while outscoring his opponents, 113-10. But while most of the favorites won as expected, no one is safe from the imminent danger of a tournament where 330 of the nation’s top wrestlers are competing for the same goal, with only 10 national championships to go around. Someone has to leave empty handed. Rest of the story at https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/psu/2019/03/26/NCAA-Wrestling-Championships-PPG-Paints-Arena-Penn-State-Jason-Nolf-Spencer-Lee-Franklin-Regional/stories/201903250122?mc_cid=19991bd8ba&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b
Austin O’Connor expects ‘target on back’ after All-American season for North Carolina
With the opportunity to win a national title no longer a reality, Austin O’Connor could have allowed the disappointment of defeat to dictate his remarkable season. That’s not what champions do. They don’t sulk or wallow in self-pity. They persevere and regain their focus. And that’s precisely what O’Connor did on March 25 at the NCAA Tournament for wrestling in Pittsburgh.
A 2017 St. Rita graduate and redshirt freshman for North Carolina, O’Connor regrouped from his loss in the semifinals to Ohio State’s Micah Jordan by winning his next two matches at 149 pounds and earning a third-place finish. O’Connor (34-6) also made a statement, becoming just the seventh freshman All-American for North Carolina and the highest freshman finisher in program history. “There’s a sense of celebration,” O’Connor said. “Shrugging off that (semifinals) loss and being able to beat a kid (Duke’s Mitch Finesilver) twice who I was 1-3 going into the tourney against was huge.” After losing to Jordan, O’Connor then beat Missouri’s Brock Mauller to set up the third-place match against Finesilver. It was the sixth time the two competed against each other this season. Rest of the story and details at https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/daily-southtown/sports/ct-sta-spt-pat-disabato-column-st-0331-story.html?mc_cid=9fa730503d&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b
Aaron Bancroft of Fike High School to be awarded the Lee Carroll Award
Junior State Champion Aaron Bancroft has been named to receive the 21st Lee Carroll Award for excellence as the best underclassman wrestler in the northern Tri-River area for the 2018-2019 season. The time and date of the presentation of the trophy has yet to be determined but will be announced later.
Check out renovated Dan Gable Museum without leaving home
TDR EDitor’s Notes ; Sounds like a great way to check out this museum before packing up the car and going over.
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Eager to see the totally renovated National Wrestling Hall of Fame Dan Gable Museum … but not able to make the trip to Waterloo, Iowa right now? Now you can take a look inside the facility which just reopened last week after having been closed since last September for a $1.4 million makeover … thanks to your choice of videos available online.
The long …
For an in-depth look inside the new-look Dan Gable Museum, take a look at the video on Trackwrestling.com, featuring your own personal 17-minute tour conducted by museum director Kyle Klingman and Trackwrestling’s Andy Hamilton. The tour starts just inside the front door, with a new lobby mural featuring images of Dan Gable, Helen Maroulis (first U.S. woman wrestler to win Olympic gold), Dremiel Byers (described as one of the “most prolific” U.S. Greco-Roman grapplers) and Kurt Angle (1996 U.S. Olympic freestyle gold medalist who is about to conclude a 20-year pro wrestling career). “It really sets the tone for the museum,” said Klingman, who then demonstrated one of the museum’s new electronic kiosks which lets visitors access profiles of honorees on easy-to-use touch screens. Another high point of the Trackwrestling video tour is a visit to the Dan Gable area, with displays highlighting his stellar high school, college and Olympic wrestling careers … as well as his success as head coach at the University of Iowa.
Klingman then takes viewers into the new theater which allows visitors to watch their choice of films from NCAA wrestling championships going back to 1937 … using a touch-screen to instantly access specific matches. The Trackwrestling video tour concludes in the Dan Gable Learning Center, the bigger-and-better wrestling practice/training room … providing more opportunities for young wrestlers to practice and receive instruction. “We want the museum to be a symbol of excellence and a source of pride in the community,” Dan Gable said in the museum’s press release announcing its recent reopening. “These improvements will make the museum more modern and appealing and a place you want to go, but more importantly, they will give us the ability to impact more young lives and make a big difference in their future.” Rest of the story and details at https://intermatwrestle.com/articles/21770
David Taylor named 2018 John Smith Award winner, as USA Wrestling’s Freestyle Wrestler of the Year
By Gary Abbott, USA Wrestling | March 28, 2019,
David Taylor (State College, Pa./Nittany Lion WC) has been named the winner of the 2018 John Smith Award as the Freestyle Wrestler of the Year by USA Wrestling. It is the first time that Taylor has received this prestigious award. Taylor received the award at the Kickoff Party, organized by Jordan and Lauren Burroughs, in Pittsburgh, Pa. on March 20. Taylor won a gold medal at 86 kg in freestyle at the 2018 World Wrestling Championships in Budapest, Hungary. It was his first Senior World Championships appearance for the United States. Seeded second based upon his successful season, Taylor was randomly drawn into an opening bout against Olympic and World champion Hassan Yazdani Charati of Iran. In a memorable match where he trailed 6-2 at the break, Taylor powered back in the second period for an 11-6 win.
Taylor won three more times on his first day just to reach the finals. After a dominant 10-0 technical fall over 2015 European Junior champion Hajy Rajabau of Belarus, he shut down a difficult opponent for him, Cuba’s Yurieski Torreblanca of Cuba, 8-0 in the quarterfinals. The semifinal against 2017 European champion Dauren Kurugliev of Russia became a classic. Taylor fell behind 5-1 at the break, but also, when Kurugliev kicked out of a Taylor leg attack, the kick struck Taylor’s head and actually knocked him out. In the second period, Taylor rallied with two takedowns to tie it at 5-5, gaining the tiebreaking criteria. In the final seconds, Taylor converted another takedown to shut the door for a rough 7-5 win. His gold-medal bout was against Fatih Erdin of Turkey, the talented No. 1 seed, who Taylor dominated on the way to a 12-2 technical fall. He finished the 2018 season undefeated, including competition at the international and domestic levels. Taylor qualified for his first U.S. Senior World Team by winning Final X at State College in June, defeating Nick Reenan in the best-of-three finals series in two straight matches. Taylor was also the 2108 U.S. Open champion in Las Vegas, Nev. in April, defeating Richard Perry in the championship finals. It was Taylor’s fourth career U.S. Open title. Rest of the story at https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Wrestling/Features/2019/March/28/Taylor-named-USA-Wrestling-Freestyle-Wrestler-of-the-Year?mc_cid=4103084d40&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b
TDR blog
After 20 seasons of publicizing wrestling The TakeDown Report’s (TDR) focus has changed to the collecting of college coaching records from North America since 1903. We will continue to recognize and reward successful wrestlers in eastern North Carolina (east of Raleigh & Fayetteville), assist with schools in starting or re-starting a team and this blog. Join us on our FaceBook Page – “The TakeDown Report” for photos and news. Please send results, stories, links and news to pass along. E-mail us at takedownreport@gmail.com
Martin Fleming, Editor
Takedown Report
