While NCAA Basketball has March Madness running rampant this month, fans of college wrestling were treated to what they like to call “March Matness” with the recent NCAA Wrestling Championships from March 15-17. This year a record-breaking 113,743 fans from around the country flocked to the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio for the three-day, six-session, wrestling tournament. Saturday night’s Finals session set a single-session wrestling attendance record of 19,776.
This year’s finals session featured a host of premier matchups that brought an elevated level of excitement. Freshman phenoms, retribution, and a tightly contested team battle were just a few of the many different stories for these finals. Let’s take a look at some of the weight classes that had the most exciting matchups in this year’s NCAA Wrestling Championships.
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Kicking the night off were the lightweights which featured freshman phenom, Spencer Lee out of the University of Iowa against Nick Suriano, former Nittany Lion who is now competing in his home state of New Jersey at Rutgers University. Coming into the year, Lee was originally on a redshirt but had it pulled in January making him eligible for this year’s national tournament. Suriano, a sophomore, came into this year with a bit of a chip on his shoulder. Having completed his freshman campaign under the tutelage of Cael Sanderson at Penn State, a season-ending injury, unfortunately, prevented him from competing in the 2017 national tournament. He then decided to transfer to Rutgers in his home state of New Jersey with a newfound passion to make a name for himself. Both athletes dominated the competition leading into the finals, so their matchup was heavily anticipated. Spencer Lee came out victorious in a 5-1 regular decision after a hard fought battle in which he really found his offense and left no opportunity for Suriano to open up.
165
At last year’s championship, Vincenzo Joseph of Penn State shocked the world by pinning then-defending champion Isaiah Martinez of Illinois University to win the title at 165 pounds. This year, Martinez, a senior, came in like a man on a mission, determined to right the wrong of 2017 and once again climb the mountain to the top of the podium. Vincenzo, on the other hand, had other plans in mind. Almost similar to how he won the year before, Joseph connected with an outside trip to Martinez towards the end of the first period to gain the takedown along with some back points. This hole proved to be too much for the former champion Martinez as he fell to Joseph by a score of 6-1 giving the sophomore his second national championship.
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By the time of the only head-to-head finals match between Ohio State and Penn State, the team race was neck and neck with this match being the deciding factor. Representing the Buckeyes was former 2016 NCAA champion** Myles Martin (**at 174 pounds), and for the Nittany Lions, it was defending champion Bo Nickal. In his 2016 championship run, Martin actually beat Nickal in the finals, so both competitors had victories over each other coming into this year’s match. The match started out to be quite even in the beginning but quickly turned into the most exciting fifteen seconds of the entire tournament. Martin seemed poised for a victory after executing a double leg takedown that put Nickal on his back. Nickal immediately flipped the script, literally, and pinned Martin to give himself his second national championship and thus securing the team championship for Penn State.
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With the team championship locked up, Ohio State still had some business to take care in the form of their heavyweight, Kyle Snyder securing his third national championship. It was not going to be easy for the Buckeye as he was facing off against his foe who had given him his lone loss of the season (first loss since 2015), Adam Coon of the University of Michigan. To the surprise of no one watching, the final match of the night certainly lived up to the hype with an exciting back and forth match that came down to the wire. In the end, it was Snyder who came up big with a takedown late in the third period to give him the 3-2 victory and another national championship to end his illustrious college career.
