Chicks Heart Fights

Though I was there live, and watched the broadcast with some friends a few nights ago, I am finally sitting down by myself to watch the finals on ESPN. Our announcers are Tim Johnson (yay), Jeff Blatnick (yay) and some dude who clearly knows nothing about wrestling. Quint Kessenich is the matside reporter, and I feel like I’m going to betray the sisterhood here, but why on earth don’t they have a woman doing this job? The guys are just walking away from Kessenich and not listening to a word he says. If they had a relatively attractive woman in this role, the reporter might have a fighting chance. Match by match analysis, after the jump:

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As usual, results can be found at Intermat. My thoughts on the day…

• It’s weird and wrong to see Iowa, namely Charlie Falck, stalling. 
• Kennedy vs. Grey was one of the best quarterfinals of the day, with lots of scoring. 
• If I was wrong about anything, it was Chad Mendes. He’s wrestling very well.
• The worst singlets award goes to North Carolina and Ohio State. North Carolina’ s have argyle down the side, much like UNC’s hoops team, but argyle has no place in wrestling. tOSU’s have a large ‘O’ on the side, but it makes the wrestlers look like they have womanly hips. Bad all around.
• Unseeded Kyler from Army became an All-American by beating three seeded wrestlers in a row. 
• I couldn’t stop laughing at John Smith whining for stalling during Morgan’s match. The man has made quite a good career on stalling. 
• The Penn guys behind me had this enlightening conversation during the Glenn/Michalak match with 30 seconds to go: “They’re both up, all tied up. What should Glenn do?” “He should really get a takedown.” “Good call.” Seriously? He shouldn’t just lay on his back and hope for the best?
• Hey, Mark Perry, can we talk? Just for a second? It wasn’t a takedown. 
• How about that Jordan Leen? And Mike Poeta? Two of my wrestlers to watch… are facing each other. 

This weekend, Iowa State won the Big 12, Iowa won the Big Ten, and Northern Iowa won the West Regional. Not bad for a state with less than three million people.

Conference tourney highlights:

• The much-anticipated (to put it mildly) match-up between Iowa’s Brent Metcalf and Minny’s Dustin Schlatter finally happened, with Metcalf coming out ahead 5-3. He was awarded Wrestler of the Year and Wrestler of the Tournament, of which he is well-deserving. From what I’ve read, this match was a doozie. I hope that video shows up on Youtube!
• In not so happy Iowa news, Mark Perry lost to Michigan’s Eric Tannenbaum, 3-2.
• Iowa State wrestled the entire tournament on a tear. Only one wrestler took less than third, and he was awarded a wild card.
• One of my Tigers, Tyler McCormick, pulled the upset of the day by beating top seed and #1 ranked Coleman Scott. Scott has been the monkey on Tyler’s back, so it was nice to see him shake it off. McCormick went on to lose to Nick Fanthorpe.
• In other 133 news, Michigan State’s Franklin Gomez beat the precious Jimmy Kennedy, and Cornell’s Mike Grey lost to Joseph Baker of the Naval Academy. So that makes 133 a bit… confusing.
• At 125, the previously perfect Jayson Ness (Minn) lost to Hoosier Angel Escobedo.
• Cornell ended up winning EIWA by a half point over Penn.
• Two Minny seniors, Roger Kish and CP Schlatter, injury defaulted their way to sixth place. Hopefully, they can get back in shape to wrestle in St. Louis.
• Heading into NCAAs, these are the remaining undefeated wrestlers: Chad Mendes, Cal Poly; Keith Gavin, Pitt; Jake Varner, Iowa State; and Josh Glenn, American. I think the most likely wrestler to remain undefeated is Gavin. No one is close to him.

… from some sweet seats that a friend of a friend hooked me up with! I walked in the door, and a man handed me a ticket for free, and then my friend and I saw an old friend of his, that friend had seats in the center reserved section, about ten rows up. I’m a lucky gal! My lucky thoughts on the Midlands finals, after the jump… (more…)

With a big win over in-state nemesis Iowa State, Iowa took the top spot in the Intermat rankings for the first time since 2000. The win and rise to number one is even more impressive when you consider that the Hawkeyes were without returning national champion Mark Perry. (Perry was suspended a week after being DQ’ed and getting a little snippy with the refs at Vegas.) Brands’ boys won the old-fashioned Iowa way - winning matches they weren’t expected to (Fields over Zabriskie) and winning big when you can (Metcalf major dec. over Mueller.) Since I picked the Hawks to get it done this year, I am pleased with their season so far. The Hawkeyes will face the Panthers of UNI on Thursday night, and you can catch live text scoring at Intermat.

Yesterday, I focused on one individual wrestler; today, I’m writing about a team that I think is ready to make the leap back to the stage. (For those unfamiliar with the NCAA wrestling tournament, teams take the stage when they place in the top four.) Without further adieu, I present… (more…)

I’ve been having issues with my cable lately, so this afternoon, Comcast is bringing me a new cable box. The bad part of this is that I will lose all my DVRed programs, including the 2007 NCAAs. I’m rewatching the NCAA’s now since I’ll be losing my cable, and I figured that this was a good excuse to share my thoughts on the tourney and the broadcast.

- I highly doubt that Cael Sanderson was hoping that his “mere presence” would inspire the Cyclones to the title, as the announcers suggested. I can just picture Cael, sitting in a recliner at practice, and yelling at Backes “Don’t I inspire you? I mean, I’m here. Isn’t that enough?”

- Moore from UC Davis’ mom was my favorite cutaway shot of the broadcast. She was sitting very close to me during her son’s match, and as a friend of mine noted, she did everything short of going out and wrestling the match for her son. It was fantastic to see it again on TV.

- Even though I knew who won the Perry-Hendricks match, while watching that match, I was still cheering him on as if he wasn’t going to get those nearfall points. Right behind Mizzou’s third place finish, Askren’s win and Pell’s third place finish, Perry’s win was a highlight for me. I’ll be honest; I didn’t really like either of the wrestlers. Seeing Perry win, though, and get that monkey off his back was fantastic, and I was once again impressed by Hendricks’ classy reaction to the loss.

- Tom Brands looks ridiculously uncomfortable when giving his “That’s a reversal” lesson.

- I liked seeing Gregor Gillespie, and Edinboro win. To me, Edinboro is the little school that could. Bruce Baumgartner’s alma mater employer continues to produce quality wrestlers, despite less funding than the Big 10 or 12, or the EIWA powerhouses.

- I did NOT like seeing the cutaways of Mark Churella during Josh’s match. Wrestlers are proud men, and father’s are generally pretty proud of their sons. Seeing Mark Churella, this amazing wrestler and father of top wrestlers, watch his son lose did not add to the quality of the broadcast.

- ESPN’s broadcasts have improved over the years, but is it that hard for them to find an effective matside reporter? Kessenich was passable, but clearly did not know wrestling. He mentioned that Churella ate the same breakfast every morning for two years - yeah, when wrestlers find meals that work within their diet, and keep them at their weight, that is a meal they will stick with. The weight management aspect of that story would be much more interesting story than easy “breakfast of champions” quip.

How many days until wrestling season?