The NCAA Wrestling season heads into a new year, and 2024 kicked off with a loaded schedule of prestigious tournaments and electric dual meets.
The Midlands, Southern Scuffle, and the Soldier Salute stole the headlines as they continue to be the premier tournaments being held in the regular season. Although they might not hold the same level of elite competition, there were many great matches and stories to go along with them.
The first week of 2024 began with an awesome dual meet between Missouri and Virginia Tech, where it was a back and forth dual meet before the Elam brothers clinched the match for the Tigers.
Here is a recap of everything that happened in This Week In Wrestling:
MIDLANDS
The 59th annual Midlands Championship concluded last weekend, with Penn winning their first Midlands team title in the school’s history.
This is a great look for Penn as they came into the 2023-2024 season without 10 returning starters, mostly due to a big graduating class. As the season continues to progress, Penn is a team to keep a close eye on as many young and new faces cement themselves as a premier school in the EIWA.
Looking into Penn’s future, they have a top 10 recruiting class for 2024. #33 Luke Simcox (141), #44 Paul Ognissanti (165), #96 Ty Wilson (157/165), and #99 Davis Motyka (125) are all committed to wrestle for the Quakers for the upcoming season.
This year’s Midlands Championship included a ton of upsets and had brackets filled with top-25 ranked wrestlers in the country. Although the competition may not be up to par like it usually has, a bunch of wrestlers made statements to why they deserve a ranking in the top-25.
One of the most impressive performances this past weekend was by Lehigh’s true freshman Luke Stanich, who defeated three guys ranked in the top-25 at 125-pounds. Lehigh continues to have their freshmen perform at a top level, as we have seen with Crookham this year. It will be interesting to see if Stanich’s performance this past weekend grants him getting his redshirt pulled, although Sheldon Seymour continues to be the starter for the Mountain Hawks.
Also, Illinois’ #5 ranked Edmund Ruth won his second consecutive Midlands title at 174-pounds, where he defeated Harvard’s #14 Phil Conigliaro who had a stellar tournament himself.
SOUTHERN SCUFFLE
A new year, another Southern Scuffle went down at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
The Southern Scuffle has been renowned as one of the toughest tournaments within the collegiate season, however the top ranked teams have seemed to look elsewhere as they host their own tournaments, or have opted to wrestle less than usual.
Although it might not be filled with brackets of top ranked guys in each weight class, this years’ Scuffle had a lot of great matches and continued to be an exciting event.
Stanford took home the team title without any individual winners, which continues to prove the depth that Stanford has in their wrestling room. Stanford did have three wrestlers in the finals though, those being Nico Provo (125), Jason Miranda (141), and Daniel Cardenas (157).
Looking past Stanford, the top five scoring teams at the Scuffle were just three team points behind a second place finish. Northern Colorado had two individual champions, which were both upsets in the top-25 rankings.
UNC’s #8 Stevo Pullin defeated Provo in the 125-pound final, scraping by with a 6-5 decision victory. Just four weight classes ahead, teammate and #10 ranked Vinny Zerban claimed his title with a big upset over #6 Cardenas in sudden victory (8-5).
TIGERS PULL THROUGH
#2 Missouri defeated #11 Virginia Tech 22-17 in an awesome dual that snapped their three match losing streak to the Hokies.
The Tigers were trailing by a single team point heading into the final two bouts of the evening, where Rocky and Zach Elam clinched the dual with back-to-back victories over ranked opponents.
Every fan was looking forward to a possible matchup between #1 Keegan O’Toole (165) and #2 Mekhi Lewis (174), however it did not happen. O’Toole would have bumped up to 174-pounds to challenge Lewis, however the Tigers were trailing and did not want to risk losing at both 165 and 174-pounds.
Despite missing out on the super-match, other exhilarating bouts during the dual made up for it. Into just the second bout of the night, Missouri’s redshirt freshman Kade Moore pulled off a miraculous upset over the Hokies #5 Sam Latona, pinning the two-time All-American in a huge moment for the Tigers.
Looking back on this dual, without Moore’s pin this dual meet looks a lot different, and you could make a claim that the Hokies would have won if they got a win at 133-pounds with a nine point swing.
Another amazing bout went down at 157-pounds, where Virginia Tech’s #8 Bryce Andonian got a big win over Missouri’s #10 Brock Mauller in a wild 13-10 bout. Both Andonian and Mauller’s style set up for a barn-burner, and it was exactly that.
Despite both teams getting big wins, the Tigers prevailed and will hold onto that #2 ranking going into next week.
FERRARI FREAKS OUT
In one of the more weirder stories of the season, AJ Ferrari returned to the mat for the first time in over two years, and sure got the spotlight on him after his bout in the finals against his teammate and #25 ranked Zach Glazier at the Soldier Salute tournament hosted by Iowa.
Ferrari was dominant until the finals, where he would mix it up with Glazier in a Hawkeye on Hawkeye championship bout. Unlike his other bouts, Ferrari could not put the beating on Glazier, and the match ended up going into sudden victory.
Ferrari would get the winning takedown, however after a complete debacle and many unsportsmanlike decisions, Ferrari’s takedown was reversed and he was immediately disqualified from the tournament. I haven’t seen anything like this before, but leave it to Ferrari to make the headlines in this way like he has done in prior instances.
A day later, Ferrari would publicly apologize for his actions on the mat and said his emotions got the best of him.
If Ferrari could act like this and still be able to compete on the team it would be at Iowa, considering there was a sound-bite recorded during the Soldier Salute where Terry Brands was screaming profanity at Northern Iowa’s head coach Doug Schwab.
It will be interesting to see how this situation plays out.
WHAT’S NEXT
Notable Tournaments:
David Lehman Open – 1/5
Notable Duals:
#6 Michigan vs #15 South Dakota State – 1/4
#4 NC State vs #9 Oklahoma State – 1/5
#8 Ohio State vs #10 Cornell – 1/5
#1 Penn State vs #17 Oregon State – 1/5
#5 Iowa State vs #21 Arizona State – 1/5
#10 Cornell vs #11 Virginia Tech – 1/7
