This weekend, the Bronchos left the 2012 National Championship tournament successful once again, bringing home a seventh-place team finish, and three All-Americans.
Tanner Keck (184 pounds), who battled an injury late in the season, finished fourth and Ky Corley (149 pounds) and Casey Rowell (141 pounds) both finished fifth, with all three garnering All-American status in 2012.
The UCO squad, led by seven-time national coach of the year David James, took a nation-leading ninequalifiers to the tournament, which was held in Pueblo, Colo.
“We certainly didn’t have the tournament we were looking for, but I’m proud of the guys who placed and I though they did well,” James said. “We had some guys who didn’t perform like they are capable of and that was disappointing.”
After the first session of the first day, UCO was in the driver’s seat, winning six of their nine matches, and found themselves high atop the team standings in second place.
Sophomore Dustin Reed (133 pounds) and freshman Chris Watson (165 pounds) both had exciting first round matches that fueled the Bronchos early on in the first day.
Reed, wrestling against the seventh-ranked Even Yenolevich from Kutztown University, was in trouble early as he fell behind 5-0 after the first period. Reed would completely turn things around, and pinned Yenolevich (32-1) at the 3:16 mark of the match.
Watson was faced with the task of wrestling the third-ranked wrester in the country, Isaiah Jimenez of San Francisco State.
A grind-it-out type of match saw Watson trailing after the first period, tied through the second and eventually controlling Jimenez for the entire final period to snag a major upset, winning 3-2.
The second session of the first day wasn’t as pleasant.
After a stellar first part of the day, the Bronchos fell to fifth in the team standings after the evening session and saw six of their nine wrestlers eliminated from the tournament.
“It wasn’t a very good night for us, that’s for sure,” James said. “We entered the tournament with nine guys and it was obviously a disappointment to only have three left after the first day. We were just hoping that the three we had left would continue to push forward.”
Those three did continue to wrestle well, placing in the top five of their weight class and helping UCO to a top-seven finish.
With the addition of Keck and Rowell, UCO will enter 2013 with five wrestlers boasting All-American honors.
“Seven of our nine qualifiers will be back for next year,” James said. “We’ve got to do the right things in the offseason to get better in order to get this program back where it belongs.”
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