Sports

Four Ohio Wrestlers Stay Alive In D-I Tournament

Posted on: Friday, March 22, 2013

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After day one of the 2013 NCAA Wrestling Tournament, four of five Bobcat wrestlers remain alive in competition for day two.

Jeremy Johnson (285 lbs.), Phil Wellington (197 lbs.), Cody Walters (174 lbs.) and Spartak Chino (157 lbs.) all picked up first round victories. KeVon Powell (125 lbs.) lost his first matchup.

Chino’s first matchup was with No. 11 Walter Peppelman of Harvard. The All-American Harvard grappler posted a 17-3 record this season, but Chino got the best of him with a pin in the first period. 

Like Ohio’s 157-pounder, Powell was also pitted against a seeded wrestler in the first round. Powell took on No. 4 Nicholas Megaludis of Penn State, but fell to the Nittany Lion, 18-2. Powell lost again in the wrestleback bracket to Joe DeAngelo of North Carolina State, 7-5, ending his weekend.

Wellington dropped another Harvard wrestler in the first round of the 197-pound bracket, defeating James Fox by decision, 9-4.

All-American Jeremy Johnson was Ohio’s last wrestler to compete in the first round. He defeated Penn State’s James Lawson in a close 4-3 decision.

In the second round, each of the four remaining Bobcats in the championship bracket was matched up against a seeded wrestler.

Wellington took on Mid-American Conference foe and No. 1 seed, Dustin Kilgore of Kent State. Kilgore, the 2011 NCAA Champion entered the match with a perfect 40-0 record and remained perfect, defeating Wellington, 10-2.

No. 4 Robert Kokesh of Nebraska defeated Walters, 8-3, and No. 6 Alex Dieringer of Oklahoma State took down Chino by major decision, 9-0.

In a bout of fellow All-Americans, Oklahoma State’s heavyweight Alan Gelogaev earned a pin over Johnson. Gelogaev’s victory over Johnson was the No. 3 seed’s second by pin in the first two rounds of the tournament. In the first round Gelogaev pinned his opponent in just 0:18.

With their second-round losses, all four Bobcats drop to the wrestleback bracket, and they will continue competition tomorrow.

At the end of day one, Ohio sits in 25th place as a team with six team points.