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NCAA D1 Weekly Roundup: 2024-25

NCAA D1 Wrestling Week 8 Roundup: 174 Pound Showdown

NCAA D1 Wrestling Week 8 Roundup: 174 Pound Showdown

The world's finest collection of noteworthy happenings from the 8th week of the 2024-25 NCAA D1 wrestling season.

Dec 23, 2024 by Andrew Spey
NCAA D1 Wrestling Week 8 Roundup: 174 Pound Showdown

It's Christmas Eve's Eve, which means most of you have the week off. But not your humble blogger! I'm working away like so many busy elves, here to deliver fresh content in the form of a roundup of all the noteworthy happenings from week 8 of the 2024-25 NCAA D1 wrestling season!

Box Scores | Rankings | Last Week's Roundup

For the record, you don't have to read this blog on Christmas Eve's Eve, though that is when it's freshest. No biggie if you want to wait until Christmas morning and give yourself the most magical gift of them all. It'll still be fresh by then! 

So, we talk a lot about duals meets and how much they matter on this blog. Well, here's another thing that matters a great deal to the sport of wrestling: marquee matchups. One-on-one showdowns between stars! Contests that sell an event! Those are a big deal, and last week we had one of the best we'll see this year.

#1 Keegan O'Toole wrestled #2 Levi Haines Sunday evening and it was every bit as electric as one would hope.

It came down to overtime and this insane scramble. 

What do you think? TwoThree for Keegan or not twothree? Or twothree for Levi perhaps? I think it was called correctly and Keegan's arm left arm and motion kept Haines from establishing control when he had his boots briefly in. And then when Keegan started shimmying his way out behind Haines I thought he got his head far enough out from underneath Levi's body to have the criteria for a takedown. But it was very very close! And I haven't had time to discuss the takedown with other wrestling-heads so I'm not super confident on my take. 

Looking forward to the online discourse regarding the topic! 

More Facts About Haines vs O'Toole

  • O'Toole is in his final year of eligibility.
  • O'Toole is a four-time All-American and two-time Champ. 
    • Having finished 3rd, 1st, 1st, & 3rd, O'Toole has always won the last match of his NCAA tournament. 
  • O'Toole avenged a 6-0 loss to Haines in the consolation semis of the 2024 World Team Trials last September. You can watch that match by clicking here. 
  • O'Toole's career NCAA losses are to Jake Wentzel once and David Carr three times. 
  • Levi Haines is a two-time All-American and a one-time NCAA champion.
    • Having finished 2nd and 1st in his career, Haines has never not made the NCAA finals. 
  • Haines beat O'Toole last September in freestyle (but you already knew that).
  • Haines' career NCAA losses are to Vinny Zerban, Austin O'Connor and Keegan.
  • Haines has two more years of college eligibility including this year. 
  • Neither Haines nor O'Toole ever took a redshirt season. 
  • Thank you to both O'Toole and Haines for, as preeminent wrestling commentator Cliff Fretwell put it on the broadcast, 'standing on business' and making this match happen! 

Penn State Dominated The Journeymen Collegiate Duals

And I do mean dominated. They beat three teams in one day and dropped one individual match, and that was an overtime bout to a two-time NCAA champ!

  • Penn State beat Little Rock 44-0, Binghamton 52-0 and Missouri 41-3.
  • The Nittany Lions lineup looks pretty much set, with Lilledahl, Davis, Kasak and Barr getting all three starts at 125, 133, 157 and 197, respectively. 
  • Braeden Davis beat #3 Nassir Bailey at 133 and Josh Barr beat #5 Stephen Little of Little Rock in the only upsets of the day for PSU (and we'll see if they will still be considered upsets when the new rankings come out). 
  • How many semifinalists do you think Penn State gets in March? I'd set the over/under at 8.5, maybe 9. 
    • We're getting ahead of ourselves but PSU might not lose a match through three sessions of the NCAA Tournament. Obviously a lot can happen between now and then but that would take us to Friday Night before we see a Nittany Lion loose in Philly!

Little Rock Needs To Change Their Name To Big Rock

They keep beating really good teams! On Sunday it was Missouri!

  • Little Rock's Cole Minnick beat #26 James Conway of Missouri for the only real upset of the day. 
  • #12 Cam Steed of Missouri had to injury default out of his match with Joseph Bianchi at 165. 
  • Not to take anything away from the Trojans, but Missouri was also without #13 Logan Gioffre at 149, #3 Rocky Elam at 197, and #18 Seth Nitzel at 285. 
    • I hope we see Rocky Elam on the mat soon, but more importantly, I hope he heals back up from whatever is ailing him. I have no news on either of those timetables, just saying. 
  • We'll see if the Trojans can keep the momentum going at the Southern Scuffle in less than two weeks from now.

The Buckeyes Won Saturday At The Collegiate Duals

Ohio State went 3-0 on day one of the wrestling bonanza that took place in Nashville, Tennessee. Ohio State, Iowa State, North Carolina and Lock Haven all squared off in a round-robin on Saturday. Ohio State beat Iowa State 29-10, North Carolina 23 to 11, and Lock Haven 36-6. On Sunday, a separate round-robin was held in the same venue between PSU, Mizzou, Little Rock and Binghamton. 

  • Injuries keep a lot of ranked wrestlers off the mat so we unfortunately missed out on some anticipated matchups on Saturday, but that didn't stop a bunch of rad matches from happening anyway.
  • True freshman Ben Davino wrestled two matches (and will still be able to keep his redshirt), picking up a ranked win over Ethan Oakley of UNC and another win over Iowa State's Osmany Diversent, who originally hails from Cuba (and who beat #13 Anthony Noto this weekend). 
  • Paniro Johnson, who was rumored to be moving down to 149, wrestled two matches up at 165, and won them both!
  • Cody Chittum was in for the Cyclones at 157, and he picked up three wins, including a 10-8 thriller over #7 Paddy Gallagher of Ohio State in what may have been the match of the day. 
  • Carson Kharchla was back on the mat for the Buckeyes, and he won all three of his bouts. 
  • Overall a ton of great wrestling took place and packed gym in an area that is clearly hungry for more wrestling. Kudos to Journeymen Wrestling for yet another stellar event!

The Dual of the Century of the Week

Pokies Over Hokies As Oklahoma State Stun Virgina Tech 34-9

All the Collegiate Duals talk had me losing track of the Dual of the Century of the Week, but I had to go with the boys from Stillwater once again, as David Taylor's first year as head coach of the most storied program in college wrestling continues to be one of the biggest stories of the season. 

Here's the box score: 

125: #2 Troy Spratley (OKST) over #4 Eddie Ventresca (VT) (MD 10-1) 

133: #18 Reece Witcraft (OKST) over Dillon Campbell (VT) (MD 14-4) 

141: #4 Tagen Jamison (OKST) #12 over Sam Latona (VT) (MD 8-0) 

149: #1 Caleb Henson (VT) over #15 Carter Young (OKST) (Fall 2:51) 

157: #13 Rafael Hipolito (VT) over #14 Caleb Fish (OKST) (Dec 20-15) 

165: #6 Cameron Amine (OKST) over #21 Mac Church (VT) (Dec 7-1) 

174: #3 Dean Hamiti (OKST) over #4 Lennox Wolak (VT) (TF 20-4 5:00) 

184: #3 Dustin Plott (OKST) over Sam Fisher (VT) (TF 20-5 7:00) 

197: #12 Luke Surber (OKST) over #10 Andy Smith (VT) (SV-1 4-1) 

285: #3 Wyatt Hendrickson (OKST) over Hunter Catka (VT) (Fall 2:19)

We knew these Cowboys were for real when they won the CKLV by a large margin, so no huge surprise that they beat VT. But it was still impressive to do what they did to such a talented Virginia Tech program. 

Things started going the Orange and Black's way early, with Spratley and Jamison getting majors over All-American opponents. Henson's no-control pin of Young and Hipolito's football game score 20-15 win over Fish gave the Hokies some life, but then it was back to OSU picking up dubs. 

Notably, DJ Hamiti made a statement with a 20-5 dismantling of All-American Lennox Wolak at 174. For all the hype we've provided to O'Toole and Haines in this blog, it's worth remembering Hamiti's name at that weight, who will likely see O'Toole in a dual and at Big 12s this year. 

Superb performances from the Cowboys coupled with a really nice crowd of over 6,000 fans on a weekday when the students were already on holiday break made for a very enjoyable dual, and one worthy of the mantle of Dual of the Century of the Week.

Other Things Happened

There's a lot to touch on and it's already Monday morning so apologies if I miss anything. No apologies for the typos though, they are on purpose to give the most fastidious readers something extra do while enjoying D1 wrestling content.

  • Little Rock also thumped Chattanooga 32-6 earlier in the week. I told you they were good. LR vs UTC could also be an excellent regional rivalry between those two southern schools going forward. 
  • FloWrestling Night in America continued its inaugural season. 
    • Think of this year as a pilot season as Flo looks to invest more in the format to try to feature the best wrestling possible in the largest platform we can provide. 
    • In the two FWNIA D1 duals Purdue beat Cleveland State 35-9 and California Baptist took out Cal Poly 22-16. 
  • Lehigh's #1 Ryan Crookham beat #25 Angelo Rini of Indiana at the Sheridan Open 133lb final.
  • Rutgers' #18 Brian Soldano pinned 3 opponents on his way to a Sheridan 184lb title. Soldano has 10 D1 pins on the year already. He is a certified mad man. 
  • Rankings chaos reigned at 184 in Lawrenceville, NJ, as Rider hosted several teams for a dual meet party. 
    • #24 Isaac Dean of Rider beat #9 Jaxon Smith of Maryland but then Brock Fettig (South Dakota State's backup to #6 Bennet Berge) beat Dean. Additionally, Smith beat Pitt's #11 Reece Heller, and Bennett Berge beat both Smith and Heller. Good luck, rankers!
  • Nebraska-Kearney continues to wrestle D1 teams, forcing me to point out when they lose, even though they are an excellent D2 program, just to give JD Rader, a former Loper, a hard time. This week, Nebraska-Lincoln beat Nebraska-Kearney 28-17. Sorry guys, blame JD in my opinion!
  • Utah Valley picked up a solid win over Oregon State despite the absence of UVU's Terrell Barraclough (though to be fair the Beavers were also missing Trey Munoz). 
  • West Virginia went 3-0 at the Knockout Christmas Classic, defeating Campbell, Wisconsin and North Dakota State in Kissimmee, Florida, prompting a spicey tweet from the Mountaineers that I had to share. 
  • CSU-Bakersfield's #4 AJ Ferrari was back in action. The deadlift enthusiast went 3-0 against unranked opponents.
  • David Taylor's workout partner for the 2024 World Championships, Brayden Thompson, won the Reno Tournament of Champions at 184 while competing unattached. 
  • Oregon State's redshirting Justin Rademacher beat Oklahoma State's redshirting Cody Merrill 4-2 in the 197lb Reno TOC final.
  • Grand View, an NAIA program so technically outside this blog's purview but that's okay I make the rules I can break them, won the college competition at the Reno TOC. 
  • NC State topped Cornell 20-18 in the runner-up for the Dual of the Century of the Week. 
    • #5 Julian Ramirez and #14 Chris Foca were back on the mat for Cornell, officially starting their last semester of eligibility. They both notched ranked wins over #23 Derek Fields and #13 Dylan Fishback at 165 and 184 respectively.
    • The Big Red also got a boost from #2 Meyer Shapiro, who was up big on #16 Ed Scott before Scott got DQ'd on stalls at 157. 
    • The difference maker for the Wolfpack was #22 Matty Siingleton, who upset #12 Simon Ruiz at 174 6-5. 
    • Additionally, NC State veteran #11 (at 141) Kai Orine was back down at 133, where he won by pinfall. 

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 Nebraska Cornhuskers to Mastodon.

Mastodon might seem like a pretty standard metal band (formed in 2000 in Georgia) but the more you listen to them the more you realize how much more they have going on. Their sound is quite heavy but every song contains multitudes. Very much a 'listen with headphones on' band. 

Nebraska may also appear like a typical Big Ten wrestling program, but they've had more success than you probably realize. For instance, no discussion of wrestling greatness can omit two-time champ and three-time All-American Husker Jordan Burroughs. 

Furthermore, Mastodon is known for having unique visual effects at their live shows and Nebraska puts their wrestlers' names on their singlets, which is fairly unique for D1 programs and also visual in nature. 

Finally, for an extremely tenuous connection between the two entities: Husker Associate Head Coach Brian Snyder is cousins with Dana Snyder, a voice actor known for playing Master Shake in the cartoon 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force'. Mastodon wrote and performed a song featured in the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters (warning, mature language in this video). 

Probably shouldn't expect the connections to be any more meaningful than that at this point. I'm basically just going to start naming teams and bands I like by the end of the season. 

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! 

Thank you for spending your holiday time with the Roundup! You are officially allowed to play our reindeer games whenever you like!