Men's Sports

BLOG: Cyclones at the NCAA Wrestling Championships

Photo Courtesy of © Joseph Cress/USA TODAY NETWORK

Follow along with all the action from NCAA Wrestling Championships here as Jacqueline chronicles all the happenings over the next three days.

Session III – Friday AM

Flashback – Five Champions with a special story. The NCAA released this video that features Carr reflecting back on what it meant to him to be one of the five African American wrestling champions last season.

Carr, Coleman and Bastida are headed to the Round of 12

This morning’s performance definitely helped lift up some spirits. The guys have a chance to continue to work their way through the backside in hopes of still getting themselves on the podium.

Don’t be surprised if we see Carr take third place. I have a feeling he’s a man on a mission. I can only imagine how miserable it feels for a champion to be sitting on the “outside”.

All three guys also are still in a position to wrestle their way to All American status. If Coleman and Bastida can look as solid the rest of the way should be a good night.

Read the full Iowa State Press Release here.

Dresser talks Session III:

Parker and Degen finish out their careers

It’s tough to see two guys who have been with Dresser since the beginning end their careers short of an All American finish in their final NCAA Championship run.

When people look back there’s no way that the one thing anyone will remember is their final matches. They might look back and say “Oh yeah, they had a rough ending” but overall, their impact went above the wins and losses.

Both athletes became staple leaders in that room.

Parker alone has the reputation of the “golden standard”. He lives, breathes, and eats wrestling. He has shown his teammates what it means to show up for yourself and your team in the practice room and your own time.

Degen followed Dresser from Virginia Tech to Iowa State without even ever looking up Ames, IA. He showed a wrestling room full of guys who weren’t quite sure what they felt about Dresser and his staff what it meant to believe in the vision and how to put your head down and work to grow a new culture.

There’s a lot more that can be said but I’ll leave it there for now.


My favorite quote from this weekend so far comes from Dresser’s media appearance the following day:

Session II – Thursday PM

CFTV – Dresser talks first day

Cyclones still alive:

141 – No. 13 Ian Parker
184 – No. 8 Marcus Coleman
197 – No. 10 Yonger Bastida

Cyclones that have fallen out of the tournament:

125 – No. 26 Kysen Terukina
133 – Ramazan Attasaouv
149 – No. 17 Jarrett Degen
174 – No. 24 Joel Devine
HWT: No. 25 Sam Schuyler

The shocking David Carr loss

Carr losing that match was the most shocking loss I’ve watched for Iowa State since I started covering the team in 2017. That sounds dramatic but it truly is.

A 55 match streak ended.

What is most frustrating about this match is that you can’t say Carr lost because he was outwrestled or because it was just an absolute nail-biter of a match that could’ve gone either way.

We watched both guys essentially walk in circles while holding each other at arms strength. Carr made attempts to get to the legs but it never went anywhere. Which is shocking! This isn’t the David Carr we know?

There has been a buzz on the internet like there is every season, whether there need to be rules surrounding athletes who like to stall their way out of bounds.

Stalling is in the rule book for a reason and watching a guy tread backward the entire time is a frustrating feeling. Hunter Willits did the absolute bare minimum.

On the other side of this match, Carr came in as the defending champion for a reason. There have been plenty of opponents who do the bare minimum and Carr dominates them anyways.

This loss will definitely haunt but motivate Carr for the rest of his career.

Injury Update

Ramazan Attasaouv (133) has officially medically withdrawn from the weekend. He seemed to have hurt his arm in his first match-up and medically forfeited from the match.

Unfortunate for Attasaouv who finished in third place at Big 12’s and was pretty excited to show what he could do.

Here’s his post-win interview in Tulsa.

Session I – Thursday AM:

My thoughts:

The Bad: Iowa State really wanted to prove that they can be a good tournament team but starting the first day with five losses in the first round is rough. But, I don’t necessarily want to get too deep into that right now as Ben and I have agreed to do that on Tuesday when we record our podcast!

Most shocking moment for the day: The Ian Parker loss.

It was disapointing. He lost to Purdue’s No. 20 Parker Fillius. It’s a loss that leaves a sour taste in your mouth given that Parker is the golden kid of Iowa State. This is his final NCAA Championship run! If you didn’t have high expectations for Parker you’re doing him a disservice. Just tough.

The good news is that there’s plenty of wrestling left. All the guys have the chance to battle back on the back side of the bracket.

The Good: Coleman, Carr and Bastida did their job. They looked solid and brought some hope for the Cyclones which is exactly what I predicted.

  • Bastida will face off against Rocky Elam (MIZZ) for the third time. Bastida has won both so this is a winnable match for Bastida. That’s if Elam’s nose ever stops bleeding. For context: When these two faced off at the Big 12 Championships, Elam’s nose did not stop bleeding for what felt like ever. The match had to have been paused at least five times. Today they wrapped his entire head in hopes to stop the bleeding.


Other nuggets from the first round:

David Carr continues to break records:

  • Carr’s first round win was the 1,600th all-time win by a Cyclone at the NCAA Championships
  • That marks 55 straight wins for the 157 pounder

S/O to Northern Iowa’s Derek Holschlager

Team Standings – Iowa State is currently in 18th place with 5.5 team points. After the way the Cyclones started the day I think their main team goal is to fight to stay in the top-15.

Other teams – Penn State leads the team race with 15.5 points with Iowa and Michigan tied in second with 12.5 points.

It’s honestly exciting to see a team like Michigan so competitive. It would be interesting to see the Wolverines snag that title from powerhouses like Penn State and Iowa.

Full results and next match ups for the Cyclones:

Find Iowa State press release here.

125: No. 26 Kysen Terukina
First Round: L-D, 4-2 vs. No. 7 Trevor Mastrogiovanni (Oklahoma State)
Consolation First Round: vs. Dylan Shawver (Rutgers)

133: No. 24 Ramazan Attasauov
First Round: L-INJ DEF (1:13) vs. No. 9 Michael Colaiocco (Penn)
Consolation First Round: L-MFF vs. No. 8 RayVon Foley (Michigan State)

141: No. 13 Ian Parker
First Round: L-MD, 13-5 vs. No. 20 Parker Filius (Purdue)
Consolation First Round: vs. No. 29 Connor McGonagle (Lehigh)

149: No. 17 Jarrett Degen
First Round: L-D, 10-7 vs. No. 16 Willie McDougald (Oklahoma)
Consolation First Round: vs. No. 32 Zachary Sherman (North Carolina)

157: No. 1 David Carr
First Round: W-TF, 21-6 (7:00) vs. No. 33 Derek Holschlag (UNI)
Second Round: vs. No. 17 Hunter Willits (Oregon State)

174: No. 24 Joel Devine
First Round: L-D, 5-2 vs. No. 9 Mikey Labriola (Nebraska)
Consolation First Round: No. 8 Michael O’Malley (Drexel)

184: No. 8 Marcus Coleman
First Round: W-MD, 10-2 vs. No. 25 Michael Battista (Virginia)
Second Round: vs. No. 9 Zach Braunagel (Illinois)

197: No. 10 Yonger Bastida
First Round: W-D, 3-2 vs. No. 23 Braxton Amos (Wisconsin)
Second Round: vs. No. 7 Rocky Elam (Missouri)

285: No. 24 Sam Schuyler
First Round: L-D, 4-0 vs. No. 9 Lucas Davison (Northwestern)
Consolation First Round: vs. No. 25 Isaac Reid (Lock Haven)

Other NCAA Notes:

Session I was upset city. Ben and I were confident on the pod this week that it’s hard to see upsets in wrestling but we were clearly wrong.

NCAA Wrestling put together a full minute highlight reel of all of them for you to enjoy!

Jacqueline Cordova

administrator

Jacqueline graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in Journalism and Mass Communications. She has been fortunate enough to have interned for Cyclone Fanatic for 2 and a half years before being promoted to stay on. She currently wears a lot of hats at Cyclone Fanatic: Social Media Director, Iowa State Wrestling beat reporter, and staff photographer. Jacqueline loves reading and watching trash reality TV shows when she's not watching sports. One of her favorite accomplishments is having interned for the Minnesota Vikings and during Super Bowl LII.

@cyclonefanatic