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NCAA D1 Weekly Roundup: 2024-25

NCAA D1 Wrestling Week 5 Roundup: Turkey & Chill

NCAA D1 Wrestling Week 5 Roundup: Turkey & Chill

The world's finest collection of noteworthy happenings from the 5th week of the 2024-25 NCAA D1 wrestling season.

Dec 2, 2024 by Andrew Spey
NCAA D1 Wrestling Week 5 Roundup: Turkey & Chill

November is in the books! So let's take stock (a nice bone stock with some chopped carrots and celery perhaps? Baby, we've got a stew going!) and make note of all the worthy happenings from the fifth week of the 2024-25 NCAA D1 wrestling season!

Box Scores | Rankings | Last Week's Roundup

It was a skimpy week of college wrestling, with many coaches mercifully sparing their athletes a battle with the scale during Turkey Week. 

And I hope everyone thoroughly enjoyed their Giving of Thanks for College Wrestling Day Thanksgiving Day, just as I hope everyone currently in the office successfully shunted the most unsavory Sunday Scaries of the year. Turkey & Chill is how I hope everyone spent their weekend. 

We’ll start the week as we did last week, with the Dual of the Century of the Week, because this is a pro-dual blog. Duals are the lifeblood of college wrestling. No duals, no season. No season, no fans. No fans, no new wrestlers, and the sport is forever diminished. 

The Dual of the Century, of the Week

UNI Tames Tigers In Wisconsin

A second week in a row where the Dual of the Century features the Northern Iowa Panthers? Hey, don't blame me, it's UNI and all the winning they're doing who's responsible!

Here's the box score: 

125: Gage Walker (MIZZ) over Kyle Gollhofer (UNI) (Dec 4-0) 

133: #27 Cory Land (UNI) over #31 Kade Moore (MIZZ) (Dec 5-2) 

141: #5 Cael Happel (UNI) over #12 Josh Edmond (MIZZ) (Dec 4-2) 

149: #14 Logan Gioffre (MIZZ) over Adam Allard (UNI) (Dec 2-1) 

157: #6 Ryder Downey (UNI) over #32 James Conway (MIZZ) (TF 15-0 4:38) 

165: #28 Jack Thomsen (UNI) over Joel Mylin (MIZZ) (Dec 4-2) 

174: #1 Keegan O'Toole (MIZZ) over Nick Fox (UNI) (MD 14-2) 

184: #2 Parker Keckeisen (UNI) over #8 Colton Hawks (MIZZ) (MD 17-4) 

197: #19 Wyatt Voelker (UNI) over Aeoden Sinclair (MIZZ) (Dec 8-5) 

285: #25 Lance Runyon (UNI) over #19 Seth Nitzel (MIZZ) (Dec 6-1)

  • The Panthers won all five of the ranked matchups and eight of the matches in total. 
  • Mizzou was without three ranked starters: #15 Noah Surtin at 125, #14 Cam Steed at 165 and #3 Rocky Elam at 197.
  • UNI was also missing three ranked starters: #22 Trever Anderson at 125, #13 Colin Realbuto at 149 and #14 Jared Simma at 174.
  • #1 Keegan O'Toole remains a perfect 8-0 on the season with four techs, three majors and a pin.
  • #2 Parker Keckeisen is officially 2-0 with two top 10 wins (#8 Hawks and #4 Bennett Berge of South Dakota State).
    • Keckeisen also has the loss to Carter Starocci at the All-Star Classic which will not be factored into the NCAA qualification or seeding processes, though it may influence the coaches' poll, which is a part of the qualification and seeding processes. 
  • It's tough to put too much significance into a November dual where both squads are missing 3 ranked wrestlers, but this is yet another sign that the Panther train is rolling in the right direction. 
    • UNI already has dual wins over #6 Missouri and #9 South Dakota State.
    • Those rankings are tournament rankings, by the way. We'll see what they become when team Dual Meet Rankings are eventually published. 
  • That's the third loss in a row for the Tigers, who also dropped duals to #19 Illinois and #12 Virginia Tech earlier in November. 
    • Missouri still has 10 wrestlers in the top 33, and a potential big NCAA point scorer in Rocky Elam who has yet to take the mat this season. 
    • Aeoden Sinclair once again subbed in for Elam. The true freshman is 2-2 on the season and can compete in one more event before he'll have to pull his redshirt. 
  • This dual was held in Arrowhead High School in Hartland, Wisconsin, where Keegan O'Toole is from. 
    • Parker Keckeisen went to neighboring Nicolet High School. 
    • Both wrestlers were products of the Askren Wrestling Academy. 
    • Askren was at the dual with Shane Sparks and Sara McMann to explain how the event came together.
    • UFC Fight Pass streamed the event, and the production quality was noticeable and appreciated!

Other Things Happened

Not all that much else happened to be honest, but still. 

  • North Carolina split two duals.
    • The Tar Heels defeated DIII program Greensboro College before falling to the red hot Illinois Fighting Illini 24-14. 
      • #7 Lachlan McNeil of UNC prevailed in sudden victory over redshirt freshman #11 Kannon Webster in the marquee bout of the dual.
      • That was only Webster's second collegiate loss of his career. The Illinois 149-pounder also lost to Ty Watters last season while on redshirt. 
      • #10 Edmond Ruth continues his uneven season at 184 for Illinois, losing to the dangerous #21 Gavin Kane of UNC. 
      • Illinois won six matches in total, including two techs at 165 and 174. 
      • #2 Lucas Byrd dominated #17 Ethan Oakley 9-1 at 133, providing more evidence for him being a title contender this season. 
  • Lock Haven hosted the Mat-Town Open I (part II is scheduled for later in the season). 
    • Cornell finally saw the debut of two of their senior leaders in #7 Julian Ramirez at 165 and #15 Chris Foca at 184, who could only wrestle in the second semester due to Ivy League eligibility rules.
      • Foca won the 184lb bracket, while Ramirez lost to Lehigh's Max Brignola in the finals. 
      • Brignola is still wrestling unattached and in redshirt.
      • There is a lot of chatter about Brignola and teammate Luke Stanich having their redshirts pulled, but if they both plan on spending five years at Lehigh, I think it's likely they stay in redshirt, as Lehigh won't be contending for a team trophy regardless. 
  • Minnesota capped off the weekend with authority, trouncing South Dakota State 30-3 on Sunday afternoon. 
    • #9 SDSU is a tough team and this was in many ways a statement win for the the sixth-ranked Gophers.
    • Minnesota had nine starters in the lineup, and all of them notched victories except for #19 Clayton Whiting, who lost to the Jackrabbits' standard-bearer, #3 Cade DeVos at 174. 
    • True freshman Charlie Millard started in his third event of the season for Minnesota at 157, allowing him to keep his redshirt for the time being. 
      • Millard spelled #9 Tommy Askey, who had the day off. Millard picked up a 10-3 win over Cobe Siebrecht. 
    • Olympic gold medalist Gable Steveson won again, with a 19-4 tech fall in 2:25. 
    • The marquee match of the dual was between #7 Max McEnelly of Minnesota and #4 Bennett Berge of South Dakota State. McEnelly got the takedown in sudden victory to claim the victory. 

Viva Las Vegas Invitational

A relative dearth of high caliber NCAA wrestling will not be a problem next week thanks to the good folks at Cliff Keen, who are hosting what will be the biggest and toughest in-season tournament of the year in Las Vegas. 

This blog is for recapping, not previewing, so I'll just leave the link to our coverage page here and urge you all to stay tuned!

Take A Chance On CHANCE

Pardon the terrible wordplay but you simply must see Flo's newest original film. Our very own Mark Bader calls it the best FloFilm ever, and he would know, he's worked on pretty much all of them!

Here is the trailer, you have at least three minutes to spare to watch it I am sure. 


I would highly recommend setting aside two hours to watch the whole film. It's free, by the way! Click here to watch, it is as powerful a wrestling documentary as I've ever seen. 

Heavy Metal Matness

Inspired by an FRL question, I made the topic of picking D1 programs and explaining what heavy metal bands they would be a feature of the roundup. I chose to do so because I like both wrestling and heavy metal music. I will continue to do so until I get bored of the idea or a deadline crunch forces me to jettison any superfluous material from this blog.

Today, I will compare the Lehigh Mountain Hawks to Clutch. 

Clutch, from Germantown, Maryland, is best described by the title of their fifth studio album: Pure Rock Fury. 

Being from the mid-Atlantic, Clutch originated not too far from the Lehigh Valley, where you can find the Mountain Hawks wrestling team. 

Clutch has had an extraordinarily consistent lineup, with the same four core members all meeting in high school and staying together since 1991. Similarly, Lehigh wrestling has an extraordinarily long and storied history of success. 

Clutch did not invent riff-based groove-rock, though it can be said that they pioneered it. Likewise, college wrestling was not invented by Billy Sheridan in the Lehigh Valley over one hundred years ago, but he is undoubtedly one of its founding fathers. 

Lehigh is one of the most prestigious national universities with a world-renowned engineering program. In fact, before it was changed to the Mountain Hawks, Lehigh's sports teams were known as the Engineers. Lots of nerds at Lehigh is what I'm saying. 

There is a similar nerdy streak running through the music of Clutch, who frequently drop references to Star Wars and comic books in their lyrics. They have a song (which rules) called 10001110101,  which is about robots and the title is in binary. I would argue that is not unlike Lehigh listing their student-athletes' majors on their roster page. 

Listen to Clutch and watch Lehigh Wrestling in my opinion. 

What Would YOU Like To See In This Blog? 

It wouldn’t exist with you so I implore you to provide feedback! 

Send all suggestions, requests, commendations and condemnations to me at [andrew.spey@flosports.tv]. I’m also usually available on Twitter (@speywrestle). News that you'd like to see in this blog is the most appreciated feedback, but proofreading and spell-checking assistance is also welcome! Pobody's nerfect, least of all your humble blogger! 

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