ROANOKE, Va. (blugolds.com) — Tyler Fleetwood (Jr. – Fulton, Ill.) and Jared Stricker (So. – Ashland, Wis.) both earned All-American honors for the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire on Friday during the first day of the NCAA Championships.
Fleetwood and Stricker both advanced to the semifinals of their respective weight classes and are two victories away from clinching a national championship on Saturday. Tristan Massie (Jr. – Hillsdale, Wis./Barron) won a match, the first nationals victory of his career, before wrapping up his season in the consolation bracket.
Stricker, seeded fourth at 174 pounds, began his tournament with a first-round match against Reid Colella from the College of New Jersey. A solid opening period saw the sophomore establish a 2-0 advantage. Neither wrestler scored in the second period, but Stricker put the match away in the third and finished with a 6-0 decision victory.
Stricker faced fifth-seeded Stefan Major of Stevens Institute of Technology in the quarterfinals. Major took an early 2-0 lead, but a late takedown helped Stricker go ahead 3-2 by the end of the first period. A reversal and a near fall in the second continued to build the lead before Stricker won via third-period pin to lock up All-America status and book his spot in the semifinals.
Stricker will square off with unseeded LJ Richardson of Coe College in the semifinals on Saturday.
Fleetwood's opening match pitted the junior against fourth-seeded Andrew Perelka of John Carroll University. Fleetwood grabbed a 2-0 advantage in the first period and maintained the lead with multiple minutes' worth of riding time in the second. He kept Perelka on the mat for almost the entirety of the third period to score an upset victory by 3-0 decision.
Fleetwood faced fifth-seeded Dylan Koontz of Dubuque in the 133-pound quarterfinals. After falling behind 2-0 early in the second period, Fleetwood rallied to tie the match at 2-2 later in the period. However, Koontz entered the third with a 3-2 advantage. The Blugold scored a point early in the third to tie the bout again, and secured a takedown with 50 seconds left to clinch a second straight upset; a dramatic 5-3 decision over the No. 5 seed.
Fleetwood will wrestle North Central's Robbie Precin — the tournament's top seed — in the national semifinals on Saturday.
Massie wrestled Elizabethtown's Brian Schneider in the preliminary rounds of the 165-pound bracket. He raced out to a huge 6-0 lead in the first period and never looked back. He led 8-2 at the end of the second period and stayed strong in the third for a victory by 14-5 major decision. It was his first career win at the NCAA Championships. With the win, he moved into the first round of the championship bracket.
Massie squared off with eighth-seeded Luke Reicosky of John Carroll in his next match. Reicosky held a 2-1 lead after the first period and added another point in the second period. Massie countered with a point of his own early in the third period to slash the deficit to 3-2 and added more points later, but couldn't make up the distance and fell by 5-3 decision.
The defeat dropped Massie into the consolation bracket, where he battled North Central's Cole Cervantes. The junior ran out to an impressive 6-0 lead in the first period, although Cervantes pushed back to cut the deficit to 10-6 by the end of the second. Massie added a couple of points in the final period to stay alive with a 12-6 decision.
Massie's season came to a conclusion with a 6-3 decision defeat to Augsburg's Cooper Willis in the second consolation round.
Wrestling continues on Saturday. The semifinals begin at 9 a.m. and the competition wraps up with the championship session at 6 p.m.
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