Noteable News from the World Team Trials

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Ted Witulski (USA Wrestling)
06/30/2003


Notable News from the World Team Trials    In a first round match at 66 kg's Harry Lester wrestling for the USOEC faced off U.S. Marine James Shillow.  Lester's coach, Ivan Ivanov, warned the young Greco wrestler from the corner, "be ready in the beginning-this guy is very unpredictable."  With the sentence barely out of his mouth this whistle blew and Shillow hit probably the quickest takedown of the tournament, a stunningly fast reach-around drag that took no more than a second.      Weigh cutting probably won't be in Steve Woods plan for the next year.  Woods, like many other wrestlers, was left in between weights when wrestling once again lost another weight class.  Since 2001 he has struggled to fit in at the 66 kg class.  For the World Trials the Air Force wrestler moved up to 74 kg for the first time.  He won his first round match before losing to eventual World Team Member T.C. Dantzler by a score of 4-0.    On Saturday, Frank Workman of the U.S. Marines was ready to pop the question that everyone else was wondering about following his loss to Utah native Justin Ruiz.  After dropping a 4-0 decision to Ruiz the two crossed paths once again while crossing the mat to shake the referees hands.  Workman quizzed Ruiz, "are you going to wrestle tomorrow?"  The answer from Ruiz was apparently yes.  Ruiz who opted out of wrestling Garrett Lowney for religious reason last year in St. Paul dropped two matches to Lowney on Sunday.    At 60 kg's in Greco for the second year in a row Joe Warren was left with the feeling of waiting in the wings.  Warren, a wrestler for the University of Michigan, dropped a tough match to World Champion Dennis Hall by the score of 4-2.  Last year, Warren was also eliminated from the championship bracket by Hall, leaving the National Team at this weigh unchanged again Gruenwald, Nieradka, and Hall.    The fiercest throw in the Greco tournament appeared to be self-inflicted.  The ever-excitable T.C. Dantzler narrowly escaped with a victory in the first match of the challenge series against Army wrestler Keith Sieracki.  Dantzler, who blames losing his contacts during the match on his apparent lack of depth perception raced off the mat toward the stairs on the raised platform.  With adrenaline flowing Dantzler leaped the railing expecting a short drop to the floor.  Instead, he was greeted with an unexpected six-foot fall to the floor face first.  With the grace of a champion, Dantzler did his best Starsky and Hutch roll and came back to his feet.  No injury from the ill-fated stage dive was apparent at the time, but considerably more tape was on his knee for the next two matches.      On the Freestyle side, at 60 kg's, Jason Kutz, U.S. Army, demonstrated enormous skill in turning around results from U.S. Nationals in Las Vegas.  Jesus Wilson dominated Kutz in the semis of the Vegas tournament.   In the match Kutz gave up three three-point maneuvers before relinquishing the tech-fall to the Minnesota Storm wrestler 11-1.  Just a month later in Indy Kutz was able to repay the favor to the former World Medalist in route to his own tech-fall in the semis by recording a 10-0 victory.      Mike Zadick of the Hawkeye Wrestling Club turned in the best freshman performance of any freestyle wrestler by winning the mini-tournament with a 5-0 victory over Jason Kutz.  On his way to the Challenge Series Zadick managed to defeat veteran wrestlers C.C. Fischer and Yero Washington to assure his first appearance on the U.S. National Team.      Casey Cunningham, former NCAA Champion for Central Michigan and now a Chippewa Assistant Coach, finished third in the Challenge Tournament after losing to Kirk White of the Dave Schultz Wrestling Club.  As Cunningham continues to strive to make the Olympic team in 2004, he did have one Olympic Champion in the crowd cheering for him.  Cunningham is engaged to Olympic Gold Medalist power-lifter Tara Knot.  The two will be married later in the summer.      Unfortunately Ramico Blackmon for the second year in a row failed to make weight for the World Team Trials.  In 2002, in St. Paul Ramico was stuck in traffic en route to the weigh-ins and arrived after the scales were closed.  This year in Indianapolis Blackmon checked his weight on a slide scale believing he was on weight.  When he arrived at the site of the official weigh-ins he discovered he was still a pound over the 74 kg class.  He had only about 15 minutes to gear-up and cut the pound.  Faced with not wrestling at 74, Blackmon moved up a weight class.  Noticeably smaller than his 84 kg opponents, Blackmon managed a 4th place finish for the Excel Wrestling Club headed by Steve Knight.      The finals that Chad Lamer prepared for weren't the wrestling kind.  Lamer had two finals in Iowa City to take Wednesday before leaving for Indianapolis and the World Team Trials.  Lamer, who is married with four kids, is studying to be a chiropractor.  After completing his classroom finals, Lamer was unable to reach the finals of the mini-tournament, but he did manage a fifth place finish at the 96 kg class.      Probably the biggest surprise of the weekend came from the packed 66 kg Freestyle class.  With the return of Lincoln McIlravy and Chris Bono at the top of the ladder while throwing in the likes of Tony Davis, NCAA Champion from UNI, Bill Zadick and Jared Frayer, who owns a win over Cary Kolat at this year's Dave Schultz Tournament a name like Jamill Kelly hardly stood out.  Kelly, who never was an All-American for Oklahoma State put together an enviable performance as he charged through the challenge tournament defeating Tony Davis, Bill Zadick, Lincoln McIlravy.  Finally, Jamill Kelly defeated Iowa State graduate Chris Bono in the Challenge Series.  Together Kelly's four opponents had garnered six NCAA Titles.