Tournament Brackets
BEREA, Ohio (Feb. 6) – The trip through one of the largest snow storms in recent memory proved to be worth it for the Waynesburg University wrestling team as the Yellow Jackets placed second at the John Summa Invitational, which was held by Baldwin-Wallace College on Saturday.
Led by three individual champions, including freshman 125-pounder Alex Crown, who was named Most Valuable Wrestler of the event, the Jackets scored 139.50 points, second only to SUNY Brockport, which put up 167.50 points. The host team from Baldwin-Wallace placed third with 134. Thiel College placed third with 54 points and Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) rounded out the field with 35.50 points.
Along with Crown, sophomore Jesse Byerly earned his first tournament title of the year at 141 pounds and sophomore Garrett Johnston pinned his way to the 149-pound crown.
Crown beat Jose Vasquez by 6-2 decision to earn his 20th win of the season and followed that up with a pin in 2:34 over Tyler Erwin of B-W to reach the finals. In the championship round, the Carlisle native upset Tyler Marlow of Brockport, who was ranked seventh in Division III, 12-9 to take the championship.
Sophomore Josh Klimko, who saw his first action of the year, finished in third place after beating Erwin in the final match of the 125-pound consolation round.
At 141, Byerly won his fifth, sixth and seventh matches in a row to pick up the title. He beat Eric Schubert of B-W by 11-3 major decision to take the crown.
Though Crown was named the top individual performer of the event, Johnston had to be considered a candidate for the award after dominating the two opponents he faced at 149. After sticking B-W’s Grant Steward to his back in just 50 seconds, he pinned Eliah Golding of Brockport in just 3:56 to win his second individual title of the year.
Waynesburg added a pair of second-place finishes courtesy of sophomore Jared Roberts at 165 and junior Corbin Semple at 184. Semple’s loss was a heart-breaker as he dropped a 5-4 bout to Luke Pariso of Brockport who, like Semple, also appears in the d3wrestle.com national rankings.
The Jackets also received third-place finishes from sophomore Alex Evanoff at 157 and senior heavyweightMelvin Warrick. Warrick went 3-1 with two wins by fall on his way to beating a solid big man in Ryan Jones of Baldwin-Wallace.
With their final action of the regular season now behind them, Waynesburg begins a week of preparation in anticipation of the Presidents’ Athletic Conference (PAC) Championships, which will be held at Thiel College this Friday.