How Will They Seed 133 At The 2019 Southern Scuffle?
How Will They Seed 133 At The 2019 Southern Scuffle?
How will they seed a 133lb field at the 2019 Southern Scuffle featuring Daton Fix, Austin Gomez, and Roman Bravo-Young?
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The Southern Scuffle ensures us that every new year kicks off with high level wrestling, and for that we are thankful. Looking ahead to those first two days in January, it appears the most intriguing weight will be 133 pounds.
Watch the 2019 Southern Scuffle Live on Flo
January 1-2 | 10:00 AM Eastern
While not quite as loaded as the 133lb field at the CKLV, it still has some fascinating potential matchups that we've never seen before. There are five currently ranked wrestlers slated to be competing, three of whom will have only about 25 total varsity matches under their belts by the time the first whistle blows.
Let's take a look at the ranked competitors and try to figure out where they will be slotted in the bracket.
Ranked Wresters At 133
#7 Daton Fix, Oklahoma State
#10 Austin Gomez, Iowa State
#13 Korbin Myers, Virginia Tech
#17 Roman Bravo-Young, Penn State
#20 Sean Nickell, CSU Bakersfield
With Daton already owning victories over All-Americans Ethan Lizak and Montorie Bridges this season, as well as being the highest ranked guy in this field according to every single media outlet, he will no doubt be the top seed. The only way that doesn't happen is if he slips up this Thursday at the Reno Tournament of Champions.
With no common opponents between Austin Gomez and Korbin Myers, we're again going off rankings and big wins here, which favor Gomez. The Cyclone beat Austin DeSanto, while Myers biggest win this season is over Dylan Duncan, so Gomez should be seeded second.
Where it gets a little tricker is between Myers and Roman Bravo-Young for the third seed. These two also have no common opponents, and RBY has wrestled only seven matches total in his college career. It should not shock anyone if Myers, a two-time NCAA qualifier who is currently ranked higher, get seeded over Bravo-Young.
Myers has three wins this season over prior NCAA qualifiers, but is 8-4 overall so they could penalize him for having a worse record. Meanwhile, RBY is 7-0 with his only notable win coming over ranked 125-pounder Ryan Millhof. I think the seeding committee goes with Myers here, though I selfishly hope they favor RBY, since we've never seen Gomez vs Bravo-Young in any style.
If they decide to seed Myers over Bravo-Young as I predict, the argument for 4/5 is moot since they will meet in the quarterfinals anyway. That means on Tuesday night the Penn State true freshman will get his first opportunity to pick up a ranked win over someone in his same weight class. The prognosticators will favor the Nittany Lion, as the only common opponent between he and Sean Nickell is Tim Rooney of Kent State. Bravo-Young pinned Rooney in the third and Nickell won 3-0 over Rooney in the dual.
No matter what, we're looking at a semifinal against someone RBY has never faced before. He'll either see Austin Gomez or Daton Fix. Our most recent data point for Gomez over Bravo-Young is that he beat Vito Arujau for the Junior world team spot, and Arujau beat RBY in the U23 finals, but those were in freestyle over the summer.
If seeds hold the whole way through, we'll see yet another battle between Fix and Gomez. Their only meeting in folkstyle came at Who's #1 in October of 2016, with Fix winning 8-2 in the Snakepit. That came a few months after they met three times in the spring freestyle season, with Daton notching 10-0 techs each time.
