Jayson Ness recorded a pair of wins by fall in Saturday’s evening session, breaking Minnesota’s
school record for career pins. Ness broke the record formerly held by
Billy Pierce (1992-96) with his 52nd and 53rd career pins. The two-time
All-American pinned Wisconsin’s Tom Kelliher in 1:25 and stuck Matt
Ortega of Indiana in 2:20 to advance to the consolation semifinals.
Iowa owns a comfortable lead in the team standings with 110.0 points.
After sitting in ninth position after the morning session, the Gophers
inches up the standings into seventh position entering Sunday matches.
Minnesota still has eight wrestlers alive in the consolation bracket.
Led by Ness, the Gophers rallied from a troublesome opening session
with several key wins in Saturday’s evening session. Matt Everson (174
pounds) and Sonny Yohn (184 pounds) won key bouts in the consolation
brackets to assume themselves a podium finish in spite of entering the
tournament unseeded.
“I think we were able to regain our focus a little bit tonight. We’ve
got six guys wrestling here this weekend that have never been to a Big
Ten Tournament, and I think nerves got to some of them earlier today,”
Minnesota head coach J Robinson said. “I think we got back on track
tonight, but we’ve got to come back tomorrow and wrestle well in the
placing rounds.”
Zach Sanders, Ness and Mike Thorn helped Minnesota to get off on the
right foot with wins in the first three matches of the evening.
Sanders’ major decision victory of Ohio State’s sixth-seeded Nikko
Triggas precluded Ness’ record-breaking pin. Thorn followed with an 8-3
decision win over Purdue’s Juan Archuleta. Each of the three also won
their second matches of the day in the consolation round to earn spots
in the consolation semifinals.
Everson rallied to earn a podium finish when he pinned seventh-seeded
Robert Kellogg of Northwestern in a consolation round bout. Everson
earned the fall after taking Kellogg down near the edge of the mat
midway through the second period. Following a loss to sixth-seeded
Trevor Perry, Everson will wrestle Michigan State’s Ian Hinton for
seventh place in the 174-pound bracket tomorrow. The Mitchell, S.D.
native has split a pair of matches this season with Hinton, including a
12-7 decision in the pigtail round earlier in the tournament.
Yohn, a redshirt freshman, edged his way into the top eight with a 2-0
overtime win over Penn State’s Jack Decker in the wrestlebacks.
Starting on top in a second overtime period, Yohn spun Decker around
and earned a two-point nearfall to silence an otherwise boisterous Penn
State crowd to clinch a podium finish. Yohn will meet Wisconsin’s Eric
Bugenhagen, with whom he has split a pair of 3-2 decisions this season,
for seventh place during tomorrow’s placing rounds.
Tyler Safratowich met Illinois’ top-seeded Mike Poeta in a semifinal at
157 pound semifinal, but dropped an 8-5 decision. Poeta, ranked first
in the nation by Amateur Wrestling News this week, rallied after the
Minnesota senior recorded a takedown in the opening seconds of the
match. Trailing 6-5 late in the match, Safratowich was unable to secure
a final takedown and succumbed when Poeta sealed the win with a
counter.
Ben Berhow (2nd seed, Hwt) dropped a 4-3 overtime decision to
Wisconsin’s Kyle Massey in the only other semifinal appearance for a
Gopher on Saturday. Berhow will face Indiana’s fifth-seeded Nate
Everhart with a berth in the third place match at stake in tomorrow’s
first session.
Sunday’s final session gets underway from the Bryce Jordan Center on
the campus of Penn State at 11:00 a.m. (CT). Log on to gophersports.com
throughout the day to follow the Gophers’ progress.
