Staff Report
ST. LOUIS — The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga got a much needed second-round rebound at the NCAA wrestling tournament and had five wrestlers still alive in the consolations today.
Shut out in its eight openers, UTC got Thursday night consolation wins from Javier Maldonado (125), Cody Cleveland (141), Seth Garvin (157), Lloyd Rogers (174) and Matt Koz (197).
“We were disappointed,” Mocs coach Chris Bono said after the first round. “We were in a lot of the matches against some good wrestlers. They just didn’t go our way. We’re not done yet.
“It has been torture — the hardest day of my career — but we came back.”
The first round left him deflated and his team puzzled.
“We had three overtime losses in that first round and one where I protested because I felt we had won,” Bono said. “We were a half-second away from winning at 157 against a No. 3 seed and a half-second away from beating the No. 3 at 133. We had a chance to show everybody in the program where our program is. Now we just have to keep working.”
Cleveland said the 0-for-8 caught all of the Mocs off guard.
“We kind of choked in the first round,” he said. “Everybody was surprised by it, but we’re capable of winning. I won seven in a row at Midlands after losing my first match. If I do it here, I would finish third. I plan on being an All-American.”
Seeded 10th, Cleveland lost 5-2 to Army’s Matthew Kyler but came back with a 3-0 win over Harvard’s Corey Jantzen.
“I didn’t feel real good that first match. I don’t know if it was nerves or cutting weight or if I had too much adrenaline flowing,” Cleveland said. “The guy was a counter wrestler and I gave up a stupid reversal and I was taking stupid shots. I felt better in the second match. I had wrestled Jantzen before and I knew what to expect.”
Maldonado, who lost a major decision in his opener, beat Kent State’s Nic Bedelyon 8-4. The UTC senior jumped ahead 5-2 in the first period with two takedowns and an escape.
Rogers and Koz dominated in their second matches, Rogers going up 5-0 before allowing a third-period escape by Edinboro’s Phillp Moricone and Koz getting two takedowns and an escape before Cal Fullerton’s John Drake was allowed to escape in the third period.
Garvin especially had a tough day, going 1-1 in two overtime matches. He lost to No. 3 seed Dan Vallimont of Penn State 8-6 before winning 5-4 over Army’s Christian Snook.
As overtimes go, 133-pound Steven Hromada went to a third tiebreaker — the equivalent of nine overtime periods — before falling to Hofstra’s Lou Rugirello in his opening match. He then lost to Old Dominion’s Kyle Hutter on an escape and riding time in his consolation match.
Also gone with back-to-back losses were Joey Knox (149) and Josh Edmondson (184).
