PHILADELPHIA — It was a long, gritty first day at the NCAA Championships, and Iowa State is still fighting. One Cyclone, Jacob Frost, punched his ticket to the quarterfinals. The rest? Five Cyclones will keep battling through the back side with something to prove.
Jacob put on a dominant show against No. 8 Andrew Alirez of Northern Colorado with a 6-1 win, sending himself to the quarterfinals. It was 1-1 with under a minute to go. Frost got a late takedown, locked in the ride time point and to top it off, Alirez got dinged for stalling.
“That was a big, big win for him, and deservedly so,” head coach Kevin Dresser said. “We knew [Alirez] was really good at reattacks and we were smarter about that. He just stayed in there and fought. He’s a tough customer.”
Frost is now the lone Cyclone still alive on the Championship side of the tournament.
Five Cyclones remain in the back of the bracket: Evan Frost (133), Paniro Johnson (149), Cody Chittum (157), Aiden Riggins (165) and MJ Gaitan (174).
Riggins lost his first match of the tournament to the No. 3 seed. Then went on two win two straight, including a revenge match over South Dakota State’s Drake Rhodes.
“He’s made a lot of improvements,” Dresser said. “Him and Jacob Frost are the only guys who’ve won two matches at the NCAA tournament right now. That’s pretty good for him.”
Paniro Johnson stayed alive too, surviving a 1-1 tiebreaker win. It wasn’t pretty, but as Dresser put it: “We figured out how to get his hand raised. I guess I’ll just leave it at that.”
Evan Frost, Chittum and Gaitan each dropped their second-round matches but will wrestle again tomorrow morning in the consolation round. That includes the blood round tomorrow night.
As for Evan Bockman, his run is over. But he didn’t go down without a fight.
“Everybody tried to talk him out of wrestling today,” Dresser said. Bockman unfortunately was also hit with the injury bug as he suffered an MCL injury at the Big 12 Championships. The injury has continued and he basically wrestled his way through the first day of the tournament on one leg.
“He wasn’t having it. He’s one tough guy. If we can get 100 more like him in terms of toughness, we’ll be just fine.”
Iowa State ended the day in a four-way tie for 18th place with Rutgers, Oregon State and South Dakota State.
Session III starts Friday at 11 a.m. CT on ESPNU. Quarterfinals and blood round will follow that evening at 7 p.m. on ESPN.
Let the roller coaster continue.
Match-by-Match Results
133: No. 11 Evan Frost
First Round: W-D, 2-0 vs. No. 22 Tyler Wells (MINN)
Second Round: L-D, 5-0 vs. No. 6 Connor McGonagle (VT)
Consis. Rd. 2: vs. No. 12 Ethan Oakley (UNC)
141: No. 9 Jacob Frost
First Round: W-TF, 16-1 (6:29) vs. No. 24 Jason Miranda (STAN)
Second Round: W-D, 6-1 vs. No. 9 Andrew Alirez (UNCO)
QF: vs. No. 1 Brock Hardy (NEB)
149: No. 4 Paniro Johnson
First Round: L-D, 5-2 TB-1 vs. No. 29 Jack Gioffre (UVA)
Consis. Rd. 1: W-D, 1-1 TB-1 (RT) vs. No. 20 Koy Buesgens (NCST)
Consis. Rd. 2: vs. No. 19 Andrew Clark (RUT)
157: No. 16 Cody Chittum
First Round: W-D, 8-1 vs. No. 17 DJ McGee (GMU)
Second Round: vs. No. 1 Tyler Kasak (PSU)
Consis. Rd. 2: vs. No. 31 Noah Castillo (CHAT)
165: No. 30 Aiden Riggins
First Round: L-MD, 11-3 vs. No. 3 Mike Caliendo (IOWA)
Consis. Prelim.: W-D, 7-6 vs. No. 32 Jared Keslar (PITT)
Consis. Rd. 1: W-D, 9-3 vs. No. 14 Drake Rhodes (SDSU)
Consis. Rd. 2: vs. No. 13 Will Miller (APP)
174: No. 23 MJ Gaitan
First Round: W-MD, 13-2 vs. No. 10 Alex Cramer (CMU)
Second Round: L-MD, 12-4 vs. No. 7 Danny Wask (NAVY)
Consis. Rd. 2: vs. No. 8 Lenny Pinto (NEB)
184: No. 13 Evan Bockman – DNP
First Round: L-F, 6:49 vs. No. 20 Nick Fine (COL)
Consis. Rd. 1: L-D, 12-5 vs. No. 29 Kole Mulhauser (PRIN)
285: No. 28 Daniel Herrera – DNP
First Round: L-D, 6-0 vs. No. 5 Ben Kueter (IOWA)
Consis. Rd. 2: L-D, 7-1 vs. No. 21 Jacob Bullock (IND)
Top Team Standings:
| 1 | Penn State | 39.5 |
| 2 | Nebraska | 28.0 |
| 3 | Oklahoma State | 27.0 |
| 4 | Iowa | 18.0 |
| 4 | Minnesota | 18.0 |
| 4 | Ohio State | 18.0 |
