From a very early piece of the team lead, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga plummeted on the NCAA wrestling tournament team scoreboard.
With their seven wrestlers having competed, the Mocs had but one competitor in the championship round of the three-day even in St. Louis.
Fifth-seeded senior 125-pounder Sean Boyle won his opening match, escaping Lehigh's Scott Parker 6-5 but then joined his teammates in the losers-bracket following a 12-7 loss to Edinboro's 12th-seeded Kory Mines (35-7). The setback dropped Boyle to 30-6 on the season.
He was the first of the Mocs to wrestle Thursday evening at the Scottrade Center with the others competing later in the first round of consolations.
Following Boyle's opening win, UTC lost the rest of its first-round matches including senior Nick Soto, a four-time tournament qualifier who got caught and pinned in the waning moments of the first period by Cornell's Mark Grey.
Soto's loss started a string of first-round setbacks for the Mocs.
Mike Pongracz (141) dropped a 4-0 decision to North Carolina's Joe Ward, Shawn Greevy (149) was out-pointed by Penn State's Zack Beitz 10-1, Sean Mappes (174) lost to Virginia Tech's Zach Epperly 8-3, Scottie Boykin (197) fell to top-seeded J'Den Cox (34-0) of Missouri 8-1 and heavyweight Jared Johnson lost to Oklahoma State's Austin Masden 6-1.
In his first consolation round match later today, Soto will have Mitch Finesilver (14-12) of Duke. Pongracz wrestles fifth-seeded Josh Dziewa (27-9) of Iowa whom he lost to 4-2 in the team's meet during the national duals. Dziewa was upset by Kevin Jack of North Carolina State, 6-3.
Mappes will square off with 10th-seed Mark Martin of Ohio State, who was bested by Kurtis Judson of North Dakota State, 5-3 in overtime; Boykin will wrestle Nathan Rotert of South Dakota State and Johnson will meet Pittsburg's Ryan Solomon (15-13).