Dec. 1, 2008
This weekend we traveled all the way to Albany, New York for the Northeast Duals. We dualed four tough teams; Old Dominion, Maryland, Harvard and Brown. Our first dual was against the #20 ranked Monarchs of Old Dominion. This dual was a great test for our team. We knew ODU was going to come out on fire, and they were going to scrap hard as they always do. Right out of the gate, Troy Dolan faced #5 ranked (James) Nicholson. Troy did a great job of matching the intensity Nicholson brought to the mat and fought to a three point loss. This was a step in the right direction, Nicholson will be in the hunt for a national title. Our other lightweights also stepped it up as Todd Schavrien beat #12 (Kyle) Hutter and Marcus Hoehn knocked off #11 Ryan Williams. Then, to top off the last of our lightweights, Andrew Sherry pinned his guy in the first period. From 157 to HWT, we did what we do best and basically ran the table on ODU. This was a big step in the right direction because many have been skeptical of our lightweights and, knocking off 2, almost 3 ranked guys, shows that Missouri wrestling is for real.
Our second dual was against Maryland, led by the #2 ranked wrestler in the nation at 197 pounds, Hudson Taylor. The dual started out with our lightweights battling hard with Marcus Hoehn pulling off another big win over #15 Alex Krom. Marcus had a great weekend and now that he will be ranked in the top 20, he should get the respect that he deserves. Once again, Andrew Sherry showed a barrage of double leg takedowns to get the major decision at 149 and I got a tech fall at 157. The two bonus point scoring matches in a row fueled the fire for our bigger guys as Max Askren faced #2 Hudson Taylor. Max controlled the whole match and almost got the fall in the second period. Now Max should be ranked inside the top 3 which means we will have at least four guys ranked in the top five.
The match against Harvard was a blood bath to say the least. We received forfeits at 125 and 141. Todd Schavrien showed his skills on top with a tech fall early in the second period. After suffering a heartbreaker for Brandon Wiest at 149, I got the team spirit back up after beating #4 ranked J.P. O'Conner. A high pace and a second period takedown was what won the match for me and I was very pumped to say the least. After my match, we ran the table on them with the exception of 184 where John Andrews fought tooth and nail but fell victim to Blue Springs native Louis Caputo.
Our last match was against Brown University and we only lost one match. Dolan battled hard and got a very impressive win over his adversary and the ball kept rolling and rolling all the way to our very dominant dual victory. We are now 7-0 and this weekend marked a milestone in Coach Brian Smith's coaching career. Coach Smith is now the winningest coach in Missouri wrestling History. This is his 11th season as the head coach, and if you ask him if he's proud, he'll tell you he is, but he is not satisfied yet. His plans include many more wins for the Tigers in the future.
As a recap, we improved our record to an undefeated 7-0 and the Tigers knocked off 5 ranked wrestlers. This means that this coming week, we may have 7 wrestlers ranked in the top 20 and 5 of those wrestlers should be ranked in the top five. I'm not saying this to boast, but I figured it should be brought to everyone's attention so you can see how hard we have been working to make improvements. Hope to see you all soon, thanks for the support. GO TIGERS!!