Ithaca always puts on a very nice little DIII tournament to start the season off every year. Letting us know where things stand on the east coast in the D3 world. Let's take a look at what went down.
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| Gavin Bradley Wins 125 lbs |
Great tournament for Gavin Bradley of Castleton who was 4th in last year's championships. The Ithaca Invite is a great tournament title to have under your belt for the '23 NCAA DIII qualifier.
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| Jaden Hinton Champion 133 lbs |
No surprise here that Jaden Hinton repeated as champion at 133 lbs. The Baldwin Wallace representative has already won an NCAA DIII title & will be looking to contend for one again in March. What is noteworthy about 133 lbs, is that Hinton's teammate Brett Blaess pinned Andrew Marchese in 3:32 in the quarter-finals. He was then pinned himself in 2:40 by Isaias Torres in the semi-finals. Marchese came back to take 3rd, while Blaess MFF'd to 6th place.
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| Josh Wilson Claims 141 lbs Title |
Josh Wilson recently came off giving NCAA DI qualifier Cleveland Belton a tough 4-2 match. He had a tough match himself, having to use overtime in order to overcome James Rodriguez of Castleton 4-1 in the finals.
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| Matt Beyer Dominates a Rather Loaded 149 lbs Bracket |
It's hard to believe that Matt Beyer finished 4th at last year's championships, considering how good he competed here. He just thrashed the competition. A 13-1 major over Ty Stewart of Springfield, who had upset last year's runner-up Tyler Rossini of SUNY-Oswego & then tech'ing Zach Soda of New England College 18-1 in the semis before winning the title over last year's 6th placer Elijah Cyr of Castleton. Cyr had also upset Rossini 3-1.
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| Michael Petrella Adds Another Title To Collection |
I was hoping we'd get to see Jake DeGuire of Springfield who was 3rd at the NCAA DIII's last season at 157 Vs Charlie Grygas of SUNY-Oswego who was 4th at 174. Not meant to happen as Desmond McLaughlin of Castleton pulled off a huge upset knocking off Grygas 7-3 in the semi-finals. Grygas for measure, won the Ithaca Invite last season. Deguire took all of 41 seconds to stick McLaughlin, as Grygas came back for 3rd.
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| Isaac Cory Wins 184 lbs |
I'm not sure if the Ithaca Invite had an outstanding wrestler award given out or not, but if they did, I'd have no objections if they had given it to Isaac Cory of Penn Tech. Great tournament for the '23 NCAA qualifier. Pins Xavier Pommells who was on a mission himself at 3:45. Pommels came back to take 3rd place, nearly tech'ing last year's Ithaca Invite runner-up Bryce Smith of SUNY-Oswego 14-2 along the way.
Cory then defeated NCAA DIII R12'er Sampson Wilkins of Castleton 6-3 in the finals. The Wildcats haven't had an All American since 2013. Cory could give them one.
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| Darby McLaughlin Business As Usual Via 197 lbs |
Some weight classes you could just look at the bracket and know who was gonna win. This was one of them. Darby McLaughlin repeats as champion at 197 lbs.
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| Doug Byrne Wins HWT as Castleton Sorts Out Their Lineup |
Doug Byrne of Baldwin Wallace won HWT, but I don't think that's the real story of our largest weight class concerning the Ithaca Invite. I think what is going on at Castleton is. We often talk about "in the room" Vs "in competition" as far as determining our starting lineups. A lot of talk about it, but we don't see a lot of examples very often. Well, here is one.
I know that Shea Garand has beaten Abbas Abdularaham head to head. Not sure if he is still beating him head to head, but I know that he has in the past. Yet look at the results from Friday & Saturday. Abdularaham pinned Mason Sprinkle of Norwich & then Sprinkle pinned Garand. Abdularaham took runner-up honors as Garand finished in 6th place.
Wrestling's a tough sport full of parity & mixed results.
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I was very happy to see Penn Tech nab an individual title. It surprised me to see SUNY-Oswego have some setbacks. Hate to sound negative, but it's my job to also be honest and fair. They didn't wrestle as well as expected. Everyone has off days, hopefully they bounce back.
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