Midlands Championships Round Up: Day One

The first day of the Midlands Championships are complete — the Hawkeye wrestling team has five grapplers in the semifinals. Thomas Gilman, Brandon Sorensen, Michael Kemerer, Alex Meyer and Sam Stoll have yet to lose and will compete at 125, 149, 157, 174, and heavyweight, respectively.

The Hawkeyes are in first place with 85.5 points, followed by Nebraska with 78.5 and Rutgers with 64.5. Full standings are here at Trackwrestling.

A rundown of the happenings is broken out by session below. Competition begins at 12 p.m. on BTN2Go Friday. The finals of the Midlands will be on BTN at 7 p.m.

Session I

The story of the morning for the Hawkeyes was at 165 pounds, where Iowa’s two unattached wrestlers — Alex Marinelli and Kaleb Young — introduced themselves to the world with impressive upsets. Seeded ninth, Marinelli won his first match against SIU-Edwardsville’s Clayton Bass with a first-period fall, and downed No. 8 Andrew Fogarty of North Dakota. He went on to face top-seeded Isiah Martinez in the quarters, where he fell, but it was still exciting to watch.

Perhaps more impressive, unseeded Young knocked off No. 14 Jacen Peterson of Arizona State and No. 3 Clark Glass of Oklahoma before a quarterfinal loss to CSU Bakersfield’s Lorenzo De La Riva. Chaos!

Outside of the 165-pound bracket, in which starter Joey Gunter, a No. 7 seed dropped to the consols, there wasn’t much out of the ordinary. Gilman had eight team points (pin, two TF) to put the Hawkeyes in first at the end of the session with 45 points. Topher Carton and Sammy Brooks (141, 184) managed six each with bonus-point victories.

Add bonus points from Sorensen, Kemerer, Alex Meyer, and Cash Wilcke in the Championship bracket, and the Hawkeyes had a decent morning.

Jeren Glosser (149), Skyler St. John (157), and Steven Holloway (HWT) were eliminated from the tournament with two losses.

Session II

Gilman teched fifth-seeded Josh Terro of American to start things off on the right foot, but Carton wasn’t able to keep the ball rolling at 141 and lost an 8-3 decision to No. 2 Kevin Jack of NC State. He’ll wrestle Evan Fidelibus tomorrow.

Sorensen and Kemerer have No. 5 Sam Speno and No. 3 Jason Tsirtsis, a former NCAA Champ, respectively. Here’s to hoping that Kemerer-Tsirtsis bout goes better than the two quarters featuring Hawks at 165.

I-Mar majored Marinelli, 14-5 and Young fell 8-6. The two Iowa freshmen are on opposite sides of the consolation brackets, so they’ll each have to win a few matches to square off — a third-place match between them sounds great, doesn’t it?

Meyer got the job done with a major, as did Stoll with a decision. Brooks dropped a 3-1 decision at the last second to Indiana’s Nate Jackson, dropping him to the consols tomorrow.

Laux, Gunther, Wilcke each dropped their second match of the day and are eliminated from competition.

In all, not a bad day for Iowa, but not a great one either. The Brooks loss stings, but it’s nice to see Kemerer in the semis where Tsirtsis presents an awesome challenge. Marinelli and Young were nice surprises and should be able to score some points on the backside, so not all is lost for the Hawks in that department.

More results to come tomorrow and a post breaking it all down Saturday. Where each Hawkeye stands:

125 / No. 1 Thomas Gilman, SEMIS
133 / Phil Laux, ELIMINATED
141 / Topher Carton, WRESTLEBACKS
149 / No. 2 Brandon Sorensen, SEMIS / Jerren Glosser, ELIMINATED
157 / No. 4 Michael Kemerer, SEMIS / Skyler St. John, ELIMINATED
165 / Joey Gunther, ELIMINATED / Alex Marinelli, WRESTLEBACKS / Kaleb Young, WRESTLEBACKS
174 / No. 7 Alex Meyer, SEMIS
184 / No. 7 Sammy Brooks, WRESTLEBACKS
197 / Cash Wilcke, ELIMINATED
HWT / Steven Holloway, ELIMINATED / Sam Stoll, SEMIS

Have a nice evening, everyone.