TRAPPING THE FIELD
Northwest Wyoming destroys JUCO competition
Domination was the name of the game for Northwest Wyoming at the National Junior College Athletic Association National Championships in Rochester, Minn., Feb. 27-28. Ranked No. 1 all year, the Trappers pinned down their first national title in school history by destroying the division I field in an impressive 66-point victory over runner-up Lassen. After finishing fourth the year before in division I (scholarship) competition, the seasoned Northwest squad benefited from an extra year of experience and some key recruits to claim the title.
“I think our boys have matured a lot in a year’s time,” said Northwest Wyoming coach Jim Zeigler. “We’re still doing the same things we were doing last year. We came here with all freshmen last year so we’ve brought them back and we’ve added a few kids that we felt were very important to the program in addition to the group that we had.
“The chemistry among this team has developed over a year. They were a little nervous last year as freshman but this year they came in confident and ready to win.”
Coming into the national tournament, Northwest Wyoming qualified all ten wrestlers. At the conclusion of wrestling competition on Saturday, eight of those wrestlers became All-Americans. The Trappers pushed five individuals into the finals and came away with three individual champions, the most of any school. For the second year in a row, Nassau Community College was crowned division III (non-scholarship) team champion. The Lions from Long Island, N.Y., showed their supremacy by outdistancing second-place Ridgewater by 55.5 points. Nassau’s 117.5 points was also good enough to place them second overall behind Northwest Wyoming. Next year, Nassau will return only two wrestlers from their championship squad that qualified all ten wrestlers, which makes a three-peat seem unlikely.
“No. 3 (title) might be a little difficult because a lot of the kids are leaving,” said Nassau head coach Paul Schmidt on the prospect of winning another title next year. “It’s going to be hard to replace this group. This is a special group that was able to finished second overall. We also had seven All-Americans, which is the most we’ve ever had. We used to come out here and maybe have one or two so this shows the progress we’ve made.”
The surprise of the tournament came at 184 pounds where defending national champion C.B. Dollaway was pinned in the semifinal round. The future Arizona State wrestler had pinned both of his opponents heading into his match with Ridgewater’s unranked John Koons. After scoring the initial takedown, Dollaway put Koons on his back before losing his position, getting reversed and getting pinned in the first period.
“It’s always devastating to see a great wrestler pinned,” said Colby head coach Steve Lampe. “He had the cradle hooked up and Koons had his leg hooked and Dollaway tried to roll it through and it wouldn’t go. Of course his opponent from Ridgewater is incredibly strong and he (Dollaway) just couldn’t get of his back. After 31 years of coaching you get pretty thick skin but you never learn to enjoy that kind of thing.”
Koons’ win placed him in the finals against Bergen’s second-ranked Mike Massenzio. After losing to Dollaway in the finals the year before, Massenzio scored a convincing 8-3 win over Koons in the finals to take home the individual championship at 184 pounds.
“Last year I took second so I was pretty motivated to come back and take the title,” said Massenzio after his victory. “This was a nice win for me.”
The championship finals started out with a high scoring slugfest between the top two ranked 125-pounders in the country. Second-ranked Earl Jones from Labette scored an 11-7 victory over top-ranked Seth Wright from Northwest Wyoming to secure his first JUCO national title. Jones’ victory was unique in that he was competing with only one leg. At the age of 11, Jones was involved in an accident that required his leg to be amputated above the knee.
The 133-pound match featured the only fall in the championship finals. Lassen freshman Charles Lloyd pinned Northwest Wyoming’s Pat Sharp in 1:08 to claim the first of Lassen’s two titles of the night.
After losing the first two matches of the night, Northwest Wyoming looked to Eric Sabot to become the school’s first individual champion at the tournament.
The top-ranked Sabot, who placed fifth last year, faced unranked Dustin May of Labette in the 141-pound final. With the match tied 1-1 late in the third period, the Trapper star secured a takedown with seconds left in the match to secure Northwest’s first victory.
“That’s why you wrestle more than seven minutes in practice,” said a winded Sabot immediately following his win. “I did one more wind sprint than that guy last week.”
Mike Rio of Harper and Chris Deluca of Nassau met at 149 pounds after competing at two different weight classes the year before. Rio placed second at last year’s tournament at 157 while Deluca placed third at 141. The top-ranked Rio won 11-5 decision over the unranked Deluca in what is widely considered the toughest weight class in the nation.
At 157 pounds, Colby’s top-ranked Eric Luedke earned a satisfying 4-2 win over fourth-ranked Joshua Medina of Pima. The win for Luedke came after a string of disappointing finishes during his wrestling career.
“I’m pretty happy,” said Luedke. “This is a pretty big step for me because I’ve never gotten the big one done. I did it my senior year in state but I’ve always choked in the big ones. It’s good to get the win. Now maybe I can go Division I.”
The featured match of the night pitted two defending national champions.
Muzaffor Abdurakhmanov of Colby, last year’s 157-pound king, challenged Nassau’s Carlos Patrick for his 165-pound crown. Even though he weighed far less than 165-pound weight limit, Abdurakhmanov put on a show for the fans as the former world Cadet and Junior freestyle medalist came away with a 12-5 victory over Patrick.
“He weighed in at 161.4 so he really moved up a weight for the team,” said Steve Lampe about his standout wrestler. “I had to take him out to eat to get him up a little bit. He probably would have weighed about 159 at the weigh-in if I hadn’t. Luedke wasn’t able to certify at 149 and he couldn’t beat Muzaffor so he went up a weight to help us out. It worked out well because they both won titles.”
Top-ranked Anthony Johnson moved into the 174-pound weight class after placing third last year at 184. The drop down proved to be beneficial as Johnson claimed Lassen’s second title of the night with a 5-3 victory over third-ranked Travis Birhanzl of Ridgewater.
The final two matches were won by Northwest Wyoming wrestlers. Robert Roszkiewicz posted a convincing 8-1 decision over Minnesota West’s Nate Buys, while defending heavyweight champion Tyler Rhodes claimed his second title by defeating North Idaho’s Israel Silva for the third time this year, 4-1.
Of the ten individual champions, six were ranked No. 1 and four were ranked No. 2 in their respective weight divisions. Number one faced number two in three of the matches with the top-ranked wrestler winning two out of the three times they met.