Iowa Wrestling: Midlands Championships- Hawks in 1st place after session II.

All in all, day 1 was a massive success for our Hawkeye wrestlers competing in the Ken Kraft Midlands Championships.

We pushed 10 guys into the finals with another 4 still alive and kicking in the consolation rounds. Entering into session III we have a commanding lead in the team race.

1. Iowa 115.5
2. UNI 69.5
3. Wisconsin 60.5
4. Illinois 57
5. Princeton 53.5

Spencer Lee, Austin DeSanto, Pat Lugo, Alex Marinelli, and Jacob Warner have all bonused their way through the competition and Vince Turk and Tony Cassioppi have combined to add five more bonus points wins as well.

The biggest surprise so far has been that of true freshman Abe Assad (184lbs) who started as the 11th seed and now finds himself in the semi-finals. He’s the only Hawkeye still left standing on the front side of this bracket. He still has to win two more matches to pull off an improbable tournament win, but he’s looking damn good in his redshirt season.

Jeren Glosser (149lbs) perhaps had the most memorable match of the tourney so far. He pushed #1 seed and the #1 ranked wrestler at 149lbs, Austin O’Connor (UNC) to the very brink. He had a 5-4 lead heading into the final 10 seconds of the match before giving up a late TD, losing 6-5.

Glosser is the the guy that strung together 8 consecutive victories last year after losing in the opening round to bring home a medal. Had it not been for some very questionable stalli warnings/ calls against Glosser and the lack of calls made against O’Connor for constantly hanging on Glosser’s headgear, it’s entirely possible that we could have three Hawks sitting in the semi’s at this weight. Ol’ Jeren was moments away from joining Vince Turk and Pat Lugo in the semis... damn. But what an effort!

As mentioned, the Hawks have two guys still alive at 149 and Turk has plowed his way through the field from the #12 seed. He’ll have a chance to avenge Glosser because he’s facing O’Connor next.

#2 seed Nelson Brands and #9 seed Cash Wilcke have both fallen on the 189lbs side, but will square off next in the consolation round. The winner stays alive and will land on the podium somewhere. Also, this match very well could determine the starter for the remainder of the season. I won’t dive into the performances quite yet, but I haven’t been too impressed with either. They have a lot of work today and unfortunately it starts tomorrow against each other.

Also, very little has been said about Michael Kemerer’s absence, which is good news. In fact, all we got was:

So until Tom Brands tells us otherwise, I’m not concerned.

Semi-Final Matchups:

125: #1 Spencer Lee (Iowa) vs #5 Michael DeAugustino (Northwestern)

133: #1 Austin DeSanto (Iowa) vs #4 Travis Piotrowski (Illinois)

141: #1 Max Murin (Iowa) vs #5 Shakur Laney (Ohio)

149: #12 Vince Turk (Iowa) vs #1 Austin O’Connor (North Carolina)

#2 Pat Lugo (Iowa) vs #3 Max Thomsen (UNI)

157: #2 Kaleb Young (Iowa) vs #3 Kendall Coleman (Purdue)

165: #1 Alex Marinelli (Iowa) vs #5 Zachary Hartman (Bucknell)

184: #11 Abe Assad (Iowa) vs #7 Zachary Braunagel (Illinois)

197: #1 Jacob Warner (Iowa) vs Jay Aiello (Virginia)

285: #1 Tony Cassioppi (Iowa) vs #5 Carter Isley (UNI)

Consolation Bloodround:

149: Jaren Glosser (Iowa) vs #12 McCoy Kent (Northern Illinois)

184: #2 Nelson Brands (Iowa) vs #9 Cash Wilcke (Iowa)

285: #13 Aaron Costello (Iowa) vs #11 Yaraslau Slavikouski (Harvard)

Session III starts at 12PM CT