Saturday Team Dual Results
2022 Great Midwest All-Conference Team (PDF)
PAINESVILLE, Ohio – Following thrilling finishes in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference Wrestling Championship Duals in both 2019 and 2020, It would be difficult to draw up a scenario with much more intrigue than those respective endings.
Well, 2022 arrived, and trumped that as tiebreaking criteria in the final dual separated top-seeded Ashland from second-seeded Lake Erie in Saturday’s exciting conclusion in the Osborne Center.
The Eagles have won in the duals format and the individual bracket style setup with associate membership in 2021 and full membership for the first time in 2022.
Ashland finished the duals with a 4-0 record after wrestling three times on Saturday. After Ashland beat Findlay in the 2 p.m. session and the host Storm toppled Tiffin, the stage was set to crown the conference champion.
The Eagles held a 21-17 edge in the final matchup of the day going into the last bout at heavyweight. Admirably, it was LEC’s 197-pound All-American Chris Droege stepping up for his team to try and score bonus points.
Droege did just that with a major decision to ultimately knot the score up at 21-21. The NCAA Rulebook states the first level of tiebreaking criteria in an advancing style tournament is the number of decisions in a match.
With Ashland having six victories at different weight classes and Lake Erie securing four, it was the Eagles that were able to celebrate following the official ruling confirmed with officials on the mat.
Ashland head coach Colt Sponseller was shorthanded with his heavyweight Ty Petrey not making the trip, Carson Speelman injured at 149 following two matches and No. 1 nationally ranked Daniel Beemer sustaining an injury against Findlay. With those absences, it was a complete team effort by the Eagles to make it happen.
Cameron Jenkins answered the challenge and wrestled up two weight classes to score a key victory at 174 pounds. Chance Esmont handed Lake Erie’s Tyler Swiderski his first loss of the duals at 157. And Christian Wellman set the tone early with three team points over LEC’s Jordan Rodriguez, who was coming off a pin in the previous session.
Nationally ranked Aidan Pasiuk was a perfect 4-for-4 on falls at 184 pounds and 197-pound freshman Walker Uhl had a monster day to finish 4-0. At 141 pounds, Luke Wymer had split time at 149 throughout the weekend to help the team’s cause where needed and he delivered a 7-0 decision.
Splitting Great Midwest Wrestler of the Meet honors following the coaches vote was Pasiuk and Lake Erie’s James Penfold at 165 pounds. Penfold also pinned each of his four opponents, including a pair of nationally ranked individuals at his weight class. Earning another individual award was Tiffin’s Bryan LaVearn, who scored the Elite 25 Award following his 3.95 undergraduate GPA while majoring in Homeland Security/Terrorism.
A total of 30 grapplers were selected to the all-conference team after a brief coaches meeting. Ten wrestlers were selected to the first team, second and third team, with weight class allocations assigned for the first and second team.
Great Midwest wrestling student-athletes will rest and recover to prepare for Super Regionals in February. Ashland, Findlay, Lake Erie and Tiffin, are assigned as part of Super Region 3 while Kentucky Wesleyan is geographically put in Super Region 4. The top three individuals in each class from the NCAA Super Regionals will punch their ticket to nationals in March at St. Louis, Mo.