Reiter Takes Fifth, Rivera and Schlatter Seventh as Focus Turns to Ness at NCAA Championships
March 22, 2008
A day after dropping from fourth to 10th place, the Golden Gopher wrestling
team had three wrestlers go 3-1 in consolation competition and picked
up five more team points at the 2008 NCAA Wrestling Championships in
St. Louis, Mo. Mack Reiter (fifth at 133 pounds), Manuel Rivera
(seventh at 141) and Dustin Schlatter (seventh at 149) all cemented
All-American honors during Saturday's fifth session at the Scottrade
Center.
The three victories gave the Gophers 61.5 team points on the
tournament, leaving them in 10th place and 1.5 points behind
ninth-place Cornell. The Gophers have not finished out of the top ten
at the national championships since 1996; their lowest finish since
that year was eighth in 2004. Iowa mathematically clinched its first
title since 2000 Saturday morning.
Only Jayson Ness, who is set to wrestle for the 125-pound individual
title tonight at 7 p.m. on ESPN, remains in alive in the tournament for
Minnesota.
Reiter, a senior and now three-time All-American, ended his storied
Gopher career with a victory in his final collegiate match. After
falling to second-seeded Jimmy Kennedy of Illinois 4-0 in the
consolation semifinals, Reiter bounced back to defeat Cornell's Mike
Grey in the fifth-place match by a 10-7 margin. Reiter jumped out to an
early 6-2 lead in the bout before Grey tied the score at seven midway
through the second period, but the senior scored a takedown with just
25 seconds remaining to clinch the win.
Reiter walked off the mat to a standing ovation from the Gopher fans in
attendance and was embraced by his coaches after being declared the
winner. The fifth-place national finish is his highest since 2006 and
makes the Gilberville, Iowa native the only three-time All-American
finisher in school history. The honor makes Reiter one of just 16
Gophers to ever earn three All-American awards, and his 112 career
victories places him 21st on Minnesota's all-time leaderboard.
The senior finished the national tournament with a 5-2 record.
Another senior, Rivera won his final collegiate match and garnered his
first-ever All-American award with an impressive pin of
Tennessee-Chattanooga's Cody Cleveland in the seventh place match at
141 pounds. Rivera suffered a nearfall at the beginning of the second
period, but pulled off the reversal to gain position and pinned
Cleveland less than halfway through the frame. The win was Rivera's
fourth of the tournament and 113th of his career. He rounds out his
five years as a Gopher 20th on the team's all-time victory list.
After losing twice yesterday, junior Dustin Schlatter ended his season
with a win and his third career All-American honor. His seventh-place
match at 149 pounds was a re-match of one of Schlatter's two regular
season losses. Ninth-ranked Lance Palmer of Ohio State pinned Schlatter
in a dual meet on Feb. 24, but Schlatter go the best of the Buckeye
Saturday.
Schlatter lost to Harvard's J.P. O'Connor Friday night in three
overtime periods, and Saturday's Schlatter-Palmer tilt went into extra
frames as well. The evenly-matched pair ended seven minutes of
regulation tied at one, and wrestled through a scoreless one-minute
sudden victory period. In the first tiebreaker round, Schlatter was
awarded a point when Palmer was called for a technical violation
(locked hands) 14 seconds into the period to take a 2-1 lead, and
earned an escape with just two seconds left to go up 3-1. In the second
tiebreaker, Schlatter was able to stay on top until only nine seconds
were left and walked away with the 3-2 win.
Schlatter finishes the tournament with a 4-2 record (21-5 on the season).
All eyes will now turn to 125-pounder Ness, who wrestles tonight in his
first career national championship match against Indiana's Angel
Escobedo. The pair met up in the Big Ten Championship finals, where
Escobedo was a 4-2 winner, and also in the semifinals at last year's
NCAA Championships (a 7-3 win for the Hoosier). Saturday night's finals
are set to get underway at 7 p.m. (CT) and will be broadcast live on
ESPN.
Ness' 125-pound match is scheduled to be the first of the evening.
Team Scores After Five Sessions:
1. Iowa (109.5 points)
2. Nebraska (74)
3. Iowa State (72)
4. Ohio State/Penn State (71)
6. Central Michigan/Michigan (69)
8. Oklahoma State (66)
9. Cornell (63)
10. Minnesota (61.5)