| 2015 NCAA D1 Championships, A Historic Event in a Wonderful City. by Jake Fitzpatrick for Tech-Fall.com The 2015 NCAA wrestling championships in Saint Louis, Missouri were historic in so many ways. The Ohio State University won their first National Team Championship in their 94 year history in the sport. Coach Tom Ryan and the Buckeyes came close in 2008, finishing second to Iowa by 4.5 points. Ohio State finished a distant second in 2007 at 38.5 points behind the Tom Brands coached Hawkeyes. Both of these runner up finishes were in St. Louis which has hosted seven championship events since 2000. This year the Buckeyes tied Iowa for the Big Ten Conference title with both teams scoring 120 points. In the National Title race Ohio State scored 102 points to runner up Iowa's 84 points to reign supreme. “Coming in, if someone would have said that this team would have won the NCAA Championships with the amount of points we had, I would have been skeptical, said Coach Ryan." The future looks bright for the young Ohio State team. They will loose only two seniors and one of their All Americans from this break out season. The young Ohio State Buckeyes will return freshman National Champion Nathan Tomasello at 125, freshman runner up Kyle Snyder at 197, freshman 3rd place finisher Bo Jordan at 165 and sophomore Kenny Courts, 5th at 184 pounds. However, Ohio State's, Logan Stieber will be missed in the Buckeyes line up by everyone that had the honor to watch him compete the last four years. How special is what Logan Stieber has accomplished? Coach Ryan, reflecting on Logan Stieber’s 4 titles, “More people have been on the moon than have won four national titles. To think that this little kid from a small farm town in Monroeville, Ohio, did what he did, is pretty awesome, pretty amazing.” Stieber completed an undefeated 29-0 senior season winning the 141pound title this year and was named the most outstanding wrestler. The Buckeye compiled a 117-3 record on his way to 4 national titles. Logan Stieber has more national titles than he has loses in his four years at Ohio State! He is only the fourth 4X NCAA champion in the history of the sport. The previous three four time champions were Pat Smith, Cael Sanderson and Kyle Dake. Logan Stieber won two titles at 133 lbs and two at 141 lbs. I expect we will see Logan competing for a spot on the 2015 world team and the 2016 Olympic team. Who will be the next four time champion and will anyone repeat Cael Sanderson's remarkable feat of winning four titles and going undefeated, 159-0 in his career at Iowa State? Isaiah Martinez, the wonder kid from Lemoore HS, in California’s Central Valley has a shot at it. Prior to his final match, when asked about his chance at history, becoming the first freshman to go undefeated since Cael Sanderson did it in 1999, Martinez said "Am I ready for it? I was made ready for it. I've been working for this 14 years. Wrestling is my life." When asked how wrestling in California has impacted him he said, "Going through high school and that kind of state tournament (800 schools and one champion) is like a mini nationals. It's a real barn burner, it really gets you ready for college". Martinez, wrestling for University of Illinois, won by major decision in the 157 lb final over Brian Realbuto of Cornell to remain undefeated. Isaiah claimed his first NCAA title with a perfect 38-0 season as a redshirt freshman. Reflecting on his Championship run, Martinez said “It's just been an amazing journey that led up to that match on that stage, and it's been awesome. I knew it was going to be a dogfight. I just stayed with what my coaches told me, and it worked out for the best for me.” This year five returning champions and four undefeated wrestlers entered the tournament. All four undefeated wrestlers won titles with only three of the five returning champs repeating. Six of the 10 number one seeds won titles. The four undefeated champions were 141 Logan Stieber Ohio State, 157 Isaiah Martinez University Illinois, 165 Alex Dieringer Oklahoma State, and 285 Nick Gwiazdowski North Carolina State. Stieber, Dieringer and Gwiazdowski also won titles last years. Alex Dieringer won the title at 157 lbs last year before moving up and winning at 165 lbs this year. Will Martinez and Dieringer meet up next year? That would be a match with historic implications. Over the last four years, no matter what team you are supporting, any match that included Dylan Ness would command your attention. The explosive 157 pounder from Minnesota would go for it all, wrestling wide open, hitting moves nobody else dares to try. Ness ended his career as a four time All American for the J. Robinson coached Golden Gophers. He finished 2nd, 4th, 2nd and 6th this year. Dylan was injured in his semi-final match against eventual runner up Brian Realbuto of Cornell and had to forfeit out to 6th place. It was a very respectful crowd of 18,000 in Scottrade Center arena that gave Ness a standing ovation as he left the mat for the last time. Which state has the toughest wrestling? California, with 800 schools, 25,000 athletes and only one champion per weight class might be the toughest to win a high school state title. California had had five natives to earn NCAA All American status this year. At 125 lbs. Nashon Garrett, Cornell was 5th, 141 lbs Chris Mecate, Old Dominion 6th, 157 lb Champion Isaiah Martinez University Illinois, 165 lbs Jim Wilson was 8th for Stanford and Morgan MacIntosh finished 3rd for Penn State. Pennsylvania claimed the most AA's with 13, Ohio had 11, New Jersey 8. California, Iowa and Missouri each had five AA's. I believe that if California, currently with only three D-1 programs, had a couple more division one wrestling schools the number of California AA's would increase significantly and challenge the likes of Pennsylvania (13 D-1 programs) for top honors in the AA rankings. Fresno State is planning to renew their wrestling program in 2017 after a nine year hiatus. This is a good start but a large wrestling community like California deserves more. California just needs to provide more opportunities for the great wrestlers coming out of their high schools. In my opinion, something else that needs an adjustment is the coaches' challenge rule. In 2014 only 4 of 47 challenges resulted in calls being changed. This year 12 of 59 calls were changed. The coaches’ challenge and video review in the 184 lb finals match between Tyler Wilps of Pittsburg and Matthew Brown of Penn State lasted 14 minutes. The match was tied with 3 seconds to go and Brown in the bottom position. Brown stood up and Wilps locked hands, Brown immediately dropped to a knee and it appears Wilps remained locked around the body. No call was made as time expired. Both coaches challenged the locking hands non-call and time remaining twice! The process took 14 minutes with the restless crowd chanting "let them wrestle". Brown was eventually awarded one point on a technical violation call and declared the winner. 14 minutes was way too long to make the decision. Maybe they will have that fixed before we get to New York City and the 2016 National tournament at Madison Square Garden. |
| 2015 NCAA Championship Recap by Jake Fitzpatrick |
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