Breakfast and wrestling: Saturday morning session shows who has the most heart

<< Back to Articles
Gary Abbott (USA Wrestling)
03/22/2003


The tradition in tennis is "Breakfast at Wimbledon." For the true wrestling fan, the Saturday morning session at the NCAA Championships is also a tradition.    Every athlete on the mats on Saturday morning has at least one loss. Every wrestler on the mats is an All-American. All of the wrestlers have a chance to end their tournament on a positive note.    This is the session for the individual wrestler. The dream of a NCAA title is now lost. This is when a wrestler must dig deep inside and see what they have in their heart. The top honor for these warriors is the bronze-medal, and the knowledge that they could bounce back from defeat and go out a winner.    Some years, this round also plays a big factor in the team race. This year, there are only two horses left on the track: Oklahoma State and Minnesota. A good morning session by the Cowboys and the team title could be clinched before the finals even start.    The first round does not determine the medals. It is a wrestle-off between athletes to determine if they will be going for third place or for fifth place. A win here and the bronze medal remains a possibility. A loss means that fifth place is all that is left.    At 126 pounds, a strange sight for wrestling fans is an Iowa wrestler competing here with their team totally out of the championship picture. Cliff Moore, the Hawkeye with a No. 2 seed, is battling cross-state rival Zach Roberson of Iowa State. There is no buzz in the crowd that is usually here when an Iowa wrestler is battling at this meet late in the tournament.    Roberson, seeded fifth, takes control of the bout early, and holds off a late run by Moore. The final score is 14-8 for Roberson. The cheering for the match is for Roberson, not Moore. The people are rooting against Iowa (a tradition for those who have envied the program over the years). The cheering is because Roberson is a local kid, having grown up in the Kansas City area. Something is a bit amiss. The silence of the Iowa fans was deafening.    Penn State fans have a lot of fun when the Moore boys claimed wins, Josh at 133 pounds and Scott at 141 pounds. Josh hammered Rad Martinez of Clarion in his bout, 10-3, and Scott pinned Jason Mester of Central Michigan. The brothers will be wrestling, one after the other, in the bronze medal matches.    This is where seeds can be tossed in the river. None of these athletes have to prove themselves anymore. Everybody left is outstanding. This is where the coaches and fans can see just how much it means to each athlete to climb in the medal standings.    The first match with team implications came at 149 pounds, where Jerrod Sanders of Oklahoma State battled Collin Robertson of Boise State. When Sanders emerged with a 3-2 win, picking up some key team points, the orange-clad Cowboy section let out a hearty cheer. Coach John Smith pumped his fists to the air, a little closer to reaching the team title.    Minnesota answered back quickly, as Jacob Volkmann wrapped up and pinned John Clark of Ohio State at 165 pounds. The Gopher fans let out a roar, knowing that Minnesota actually picked up some bonus points to tighten the team race.    On the center two mats, right after Volkmann's win, two Cowboys were side-by-side fighting for more team points. These were the guys who had been gold-medal hopefuls and needed to step up for the team. Coach Smith said in his press conference on Friday night that his consolation athletes needed to "Cowboy-up" on Saturday morning.    The Cowboy faithful got pumped up when Shane Roller locked Scott Owen of Northern Illinois in a cradle, but Roller was unable to finish the fall. Roller snagged another cradle in the third period and this time got the pin and the important bonus points.     Tyrone Lewis, the tremendous athlete at 165 pounds, did not step up for OSU, falling behind Matt R. King of Edinboro, 5-2 after the second period. It seemed his last-second loss in the semifinals still weighed heavily on him. Lewis ultimately did not do his part, losing to King 5-4, to the joy of the Minnesota fans. With Gopher Luke Becker's 6-4 win over Keaton Anderson of Ohio State at 157 pounds on the mat to the side, the Minnesota fans were feeling pretty good.    The Cowboy fans were fired up in an instant, when Chris Pendleton stepped out and immediately stuck Shane Webster of Oregon in just 17 seconds at 174 pounds. Pendleton pointed to the OSU section with fire in his eyes, an intensity that is a bit different for 9:40 in the morning on most Saturdays.     The OSU faithful had more fun in the next Cowboy match, when 197-pounder Muhammed Lawal shot a double leg and lifted Justin Ruiz of Nebraska up onto his shoulders. Lawal rotated in a circle, two different times, and corkscrewed Ruiz to the mat for a takedown, breaking a 2-2 tie. Coach Dan Gable, watching from the press row, called it the "old airplane spin." Lawal won 5-3, making the Orange hold on power considerably tighter.    The tournament takes a short break before the medal matches begin, giving the spectators and the athletes a chance to unwind and relax a bit before the final "gut-check" matches are held.    The third, fifth and seventh place matches were placed on six mats, meaning two weight classes were going at the same time. The two mats in the middle featured the bronze-medal bouts.    Nebraska's Jason Powell claimed the first bronze medal of the session, pinning Michigan's A.J. Grant in 4:28 with a cradle at 125 pounds. On the next mat, a cradle was also among the arsenal of offense by Penn State's Josh Moore in his 13-3 mauling of Iowa State's Zach Roberson.    The announcer gave the team scores to date, from 10th down to first. The key numbers were 2. Minnesota with 99.5 points and 1. Oklahoma State, 127 points. The math wizards may not be needed to sort it out this year. It will be a Cowboy day!!!    Oklahoma State's first shot at a bronze medal fell short at 149 pounds, when Jesse Jantzen of Harvard stopped CowboyJerrod Sanders, 5-3. On the next mat, the Moore brothers were not able to take two bronzes, as Scott Moore fell to Army's Phillip Simpson, 6-0 at 141 pounds.    A reminder of how tough this tournament really is was the announcement that Iowa State's Aaron Holker won the seventh-place match at 141 pounds. You might recall that Holker was a NCAA champion just a short year ago.    The Cowboy party began in earnest in the next bronze-medal bout, when Shane Roller locked up a standing half nelson and drove Luke Becker of Minnesota to the mat for a 34 second pin at 157 pounds. Not only was it a quick fall, but it was against a Gopher who was national champion last year. The Minnesota fans were happy to see Jacob Volkmann win the bronze medal at 165 pounds on the next mat, but the intensity was gone from the cheers.    OSU had more to root for when Chris Pendleton stepped out to face a masked man from Arizona State, Pat Owen at 174 pounds. Pendleton opened up the offense, slapping a 17-4 major on Owen with a series of techniques. The Cowboy cheers were warm, but without the craziness that would be there if the Gophers still had a chance.    Iowa's torture continued at 184 pounds, when Oklahoma's Josh Lambrecht turned Hawkeye Jessman Smith with less than 10 seconds on the clock for a 4-2 victory.    The final two bouts for bronze featured the big men at 197 and 285 pounds. The heavyweight match was a doozy, as Boise State's Boe Rushton and Penn State's Pat Cummins racked up the points on each other. Rushton won a 10-8 overtime match with a takedown.    On the other mat, Oklahoma State closed the deal with a win from Muhammed Lawal over Sean Stender of Northern Iowa, 6-4. The only team with 10 athletes in the field, Oklahoma State, will have its 31st national title in wrestling to display back at Gallagher-Iba Arena.