AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - There are plenty of superstars in the top-ranked Minnesota Golden Gophers wrestling room.

But nobody in the Minnesota room has been more focused the past week and a half than junior 133-pounder Mack Reiter.

Reiter has been on a tear since being upset in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Championships, holding nothing back with an aggressive, attacking and punishing style that has earned him a spot in the quarterfinals at the NCAA Championships.

The seventh-seeded Reiter, a two-time All-American, continued to dominate in a 12-5 second-round win over Navy's Joseph Baker. Next up for Reiter is defending NCAA champion and No. 2 seed Matt Valenti of Penn. Reiter missed the first three months of the season after tearing his Anterior Cruciate Ligament. He came back from the knee injury in late January.

Reiter was one of seven Gophers to advance to the quarterfinals on Thursday night before 14,004 fans at The Palace of Auburn Hills. Minnesota leads the team race with 34 points. Third-ranked Missouri is in second place with 29.5 points and three in the quarters. Second-ranked Iowa State is third with 27.5 points and four in the quarters.

"We came in here obviously expecting to win this tournament and everybody is taking care of business," Reiter said. "If we wrestle the way we can, there's no reason why we can't win this thing running away."

Four-time defending champion Oklahoma State sits in seventh place with four wrestlers in the quarters.

Quarterfinals are scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday with semifinals set for Friday night. The finals are slated for 8 p.m. Saturday.

Minnesota's group of quarterfinalists included returning NCAA champions Cole Konrad (heavyweight) and Dustin Schlatter (149). Konrad, a senior, has now won 73 straight matches and Schlatter, a sophomore, has won 64 in a row. Schlatter is 76-1 in his career.

Schlatter beat Bloomsburg's Matt Moley 5-1 in the second round while Konrad downed Cleveland State's Rashard Goff 9-1.

"Jayson Ness gets everything started for us (at 125) and then Mack Reiter comes out there and gets everybody believing they can all win, and then it just goes down the line on our team," Minnesota coach J Robinson said. "We just need to keep it going, one round at a time. We need bonus points and if we focus on scoring bonus points then winning will take care of itself."

Reiter learned a lesson in his Big Ten quarterfinal loss to Indiana's Andrae Hernandez. He has won six straight matches since then, including four by fall.

"I was real upset about that match," Reiter said. "What happened is I didn't wrestle the way I could and I let him control the match. He's the kind of guy who is going to try and stall his way to a win any chance he can. I let him do it. I didn't wrestle my style enough where I was physical. I talked to J (Robinson) and he said I needed to get back to the way Mack Reiter wrestles. That's what I've tried to do."

Coming back from the ACL injury was a chore in itself for Reiter.

"I feel fine now and my knee's OK," Reiter said. "Conditioning-wise I could be a little better, but there is nothing I can do about it now. When I first got hurt, my initial thought was I would wrestle with it torn and try to get through the year and wrestle as hard as I could.

"I talked to a doctor who specializes in knees and he told me if I had surgery he could have me back by the end of January. He made a promise to me, I trusted him and he did it. He did a great job. Now I'm happy with where I am."

Iowa State senior Kurt Backes pulled out one of the most pivotal wins of the Thursday evening session when he outlasted Joel Flaggert of Oklahoma 3-1 in overtime in a battle of All-Americans. With No. 1 seed Max Askren of Missouri losing in the first round, the No. 9 Backes now has an easier road to the finals on the top of the 197 bracket.

"It was a crazy match and I had to keep my composure," Backes said of the win over Flaggert. "With Askren losing, it's wide-open now and up in the air. Anything can happen in this tournament."

Max Askren lost his wrestleback and finished his first NCAA meet 0-2. Askren, a freshman, lost to Bucknell's Eric Lapotsky 5-2 in his 197 consolation bout late Thursday night.

Reigning Hodge Trophy winner and returning NCAA champion Ben Askren of Missouri pinned Minnesota's Gabriel Dretsch in the second round at 174. Askren has now won 84 straight matches.

Two-time NCAA champion Johny Hendricks of Oklahoma State defeated Purdue's Justin Fraga by a technical fall in the second round at 165. Hendricks has won 54 matches in a row.

A combined 27,891 fans attended the two sessions on Thursday.