Individual Brackets
Team Standings
DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (Feb. 20) – Last year, wrestling standouts Nick Garber and Corbin Semple both qualified for the Division III national championships, but each came one match short of All-American status.
Going into Saturday’s 2010 NCAA Division III Midwest Regional Championships, both grapplers were determined to stamp their respective tickets for a return trip to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The junior duo didn’t disappoint as each of them won their respective weight class to ensure a bid to national finals.
Garber, the 141-pound champion in 2009, got revenge on Thiel’s Corey Brown in the 133-pound final with a 6-0 win. Brown bested Garber 3-2 at this year’s Presidents’ Athletic Conference (PAC) Championships, which Waynesburg won. Semple, the favorite and top seed at 184 pounds, beat Trine’s Nicholas Kraus 10-5 in this year’s finals. Semple won the 197-pound title in 2009.
Garber got his day started with a bang by pinning Charles Holmquest of Manchester in just 10 seconds to advance to the semifinals. Though he was certainly pushed more by Olivet’s Adam Wilson, Garber still triumphed, this time picking up a 9-4 decision win to set up his rematch with his arch-rival.
Semple’s run to his championship started in a similar fashion to Garber’s, as he pinned Case Western’s Peter Heggs is 58 seconds. Semple then squared off with fellow PAC member, Patrick Morris of Thiel in the semis. The Waynesburg native bested Morris by 10-5 decision to advance to the finals where he beat the second-seeded Kraus.
Though Waynesburg got two of their own to the biggest stage in Division III wrestling, the Jackets came very close to qualifying two more in freshman 125-pounder Alex Crown and sophomore 141-pounder Jesse Byerly.
Crown, who received the top seed in his weight, cruised into the finals with a pin and a technical fall. However, he was defeated by Delaware Valley’s Terrance Clendenin, a former starter and national qualifier for Division-I powerhouse Lehigh, who transferred to DVC for one last year of competition.
Though he was beaten, Crown rebounded in his bout for true-second by beating Washington & Jefferson’s Zach Cecchetti.
Byerly put himself behind the eight ball when it came to qualifying for the national tournament by getting caught on his back in his opening match and falling into the consolation brackets in one of the toughest weights at the tournament.
However, the second-year Jacket showed tremendous determination as he won three-straight matches in the consolation bracket. After dropping, he beat W&J’s Brady Fyffe by 17-0 technical fall, and followed that with an 11-5 decision over Thomas Pompei of Trine. In the third-place bout, Byerly gritted out a 3-1 overtime triumph over Mount St. Joseph’s Eric Meyer and put himself in the true-second bout.
Unfortunately, Byerly couldn’t squeak out one last win as he fell by the final of 8-7 to Vince Tucker of Olivet. Tucker ended up getting a wild card berth to the national championships.
Neither Crown or Byerly received one of the six wildcard bids that were given out to non-champions at the event.
Though it is a long shot, Crown’s shot at going to nationals is not dead yet, as he was named the second alternate to a wild card spot.
Along with their four top-three place-winners, the Jackets added a fifth-place finish from sophomore 149-pounder Garrett Johnston, a sixth-place finish from sophomore 157-pounder Alex Evanoff and a sixth-place finish from freshman 174-pounder Cody Catalina.
Thanks to these efforts, Waynesburg placed a PAC-best fourth out of the 10 teams competing at Delaware Valley, which hosted the event.
Garber and Semple now have two weeks to prepare for Iowa and the national championships, which will be hosted by Coe College, Cornell College and the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference at the U.S. Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids on March 5-6.