3rd Session for the 47th Annual Midlands Championships

We are about 10 minutes away from the start of the third session of the 47th annual Midlands Wrestling Championships at Northwestern's Welsh-Ryan Arena. We're starting with a round of consolations and then semifinals with an additional round of consolations.

The point totals after last night's second session are (semifinalists in parentheses): 1. Iowa 103 (7), 2. Iowa State 92.5 (6), 3. Missouri 73.5 (4), 4. Central Michigan 68 (3), 5. Maryland 51.5 (3), 18. UNI 21, 34. Dubuque 5, t43. Luther 2.5

A scoring error last night listed Iowa's score of 100 incorrectly. Iowa has 10 wrestlers alive, but Montell Marion and Dan LeClere wrestle in an elimination match right at the start. ISU has nine wrestlers alive. UNI has two in the consolation bracket. Dubuque's Evan Brown at 174 is still competing. Remember any number listed is seed for the tourney and not a ranking. Also, if you comment and it's not answered shoot me an email at kj.pilcher@gazcomm.com and I'll get to it as soon as I can.

JJ Krutsinger wrestling #7 jason lara of Oregon St. now. Lara up in the second. Lara wins, 6-3. Krutsy eliminated. He ran out of time running a bar arm and turned lara as time expired.

Marion/leClere should be coming up soon. They are getting ready to start now. Scoreless first. LeClere the aggressor so far. In on a couple shots but can't finish. Marion dinged for stalling toward end of 1st. Marion quick E1 and leads 1-0 to start 2nd. Marion takedown, leads 3-0. LeClere E1. 3-1 Marion, who adds another t2 to go up, 5-1. Marion wins, 8-3.

LeClere doesn't place. Marion assures himself of top 8 finish.

Tyson Reiner (UNI) vs. #9 Colton Salazar (Purdue) up at 157; Derek St. John (Un-IA) vs. Lucas Espericueta (stanford) also starting.

Mitch Mueller (ISU) wrestling RJ Pena (Oregon St.). Mueller tied, 1-1, in the third. Mueller with takedown and NF2 in OT to win.

Reiner down, 5-1, with 26 secs left in 2nd. Salazar (Pur) dec. Reiner, 6-4.

St. John with T2 and leads 2-0. St. John gives up back points but gets reversal, leads, 4-2, and has about 2 min. of RT late in second. St. John with a cheap titlt for NF 2 and RT pt. to win 9-6. He is in the top 8.

Kerr up 4-3 against Clarion's Hadley harrison. Score changed and Kerr down 3-2. They're starting third. Harrison with T2 to go up 7-4. Harrison wins by decision.

Mike Galante (Lehigh) pins ISU's Mike Finch.

*Could be, Matt. But, you never know what might happen and I think LeClere is still a very capable kid to compete at that weight*

gambrall wrestling against Palmieri (Mich St). Gambrall/Palmieri scoreless after one. gambrall rides Palmieri out for the entire second period. Still 0-0. Gambrall with escape. 1-0 gambrall. Gambrall with T2 and up 3-0 and has RT locked up. Gambrall wins, 4-1.

Shane Riccio (Bucknell) dec. Evan Brown of Dubuque, 5-0. Brown is done.

Boaz Beard (ISU-Un0< Jerome Ward (ISU), Andy O'Loughlin (UNI) all up now (wrestling different people)

*Totally agree, matt*

Mike Miller (Cent Mich) up 3-2 on ISU's ward, 1:30 to go in 2nd. Ward fights off takedown attempt as time runs down and wins, 5-4. Ward in the top 8.

Caputo (Harvard) winning 5-0 with 2:3o RT to start second against O'Loughlin. Caputo wins. O'Loughlin done.

Giesen (Stanford) up 9-1 on Beard in third. Giesen wins, 11-5, and will face gambrall in the next consi round.

Colby Covington (Ore St.) dec. Ethan Lofthouse (IA-Unattached), 5-4. Lofthouse beat out.

Last consi match with state ties is at Hwt. between ISU's Eric Thompson and Rutgers' DJ Russo. Thompson advanced to this match last night with a first-period fall over Blake Rasing of Iowa.

Thompson wrestling Russo now. Thompson up 7-6 after second period. Russo locks up a cradle and gets a fall in 5:52. Thompson is out.

Once Semis start I will be paying attention to those results and I don't know how much updating of the six consolation matches of note will be done.

Semis starting. 125: Brandon Precin vs. ISU's Andrew Long; Matt mcDonough (Iowa) vs. jarrod garnett (Va Tech)

Long up 2-0 over precin after first period. Long building RT. Long sucks Precin back and sticks him in 4:14. Long in finals to face McD/garnett winner. Big win for Long.

McDonough up, 5-3, in first. McD increases lead to 10-4 now in second. McD up 12-5 to start third. McD wins, 15-7.

fanthorpe (Iowa) wrestling Graff (wisconsin) at 133. Scoreless after first. 2-2 tie in third and then Graff with reversal to take 4-2 lead on Fanthorpe. Graff beats fanthorpe, 5-3. Graff faces Moore/Bell winner.

Iowa's Nate Moore and Steve Bell of Maryland up at 133. Bell with T2 and then puts Moore over on his back for NF3. Moore gets escape. bell up, 5-1, in second. Bell with another takedown and is up, 7-1. Moore escapes to start third. 7-2 Bell. Bell wins 10-3.

Joey Slaton and Jimmy Kennedy up at 141. Kennedy with T2, but Slaton answers with reversal. 2-2 with 1:18 left in 1st. Kennedy up, 3-2, after an escape. Kennedy with escape to go up 4-2 in the second. Kennedy with another takedown to go up 6-2. Kennedy has been warned for stalling. Slaton escape, 6-3, with 38 secs left in 2nd. Slaton escape to start the third. Kennedy leads, 6-4. Kennedy hit for stalling a second time. 6-5 with about 12 sec s left, but Kennedy holds on for 6-5 win.

Montell Marion is up 4-3 on Purdue's Juan Archuleta in the second. If Marion wins it creates a Marion/Slaton consolation match. Starting spot could be on the line. marion wins, 12-7, setting up Slaton vs. marion consolation semi match.

Metcalf with a fall in 3:51 to move on to 149-pound final. Metcalf will face Kyle Ruschell (Wisconsin) in the 149-pound final.

Mueller and Jasen Borshoff (American) tied, 1-1, seconds into the 3rd. Mueller with a takedown in overtime to win, 3-1. Mueller faces Albright to go for third or fifth.

Derek St. John up 2-0 on Colton Salazar at 157 in the first. St. John rides out Salazar in second. Up 2-0 with 2 min RT to start third. St. John up, 5-0 with RT locked in with minute left. St. John adds NF3 and wins 9-0.

Mstar and reader going at it in first. Scoreless first. Mstar going down to start 2nd. Mstar escape, but Reader follows with a takedown. Mstar escapes. 2-2 with about 30 secs left in 2nd. Reader escapes to go up, 3-2. Reader holds on for 3-2 win.

Reader faces Andrew Howe (Wisconsin) in 165-pound final.

Up now, Borschel (Iowa) vs. Duke Burke (ISU). Burke with the opening takedown and Borschel E1. Burke up 2-1. Borschel T2 to go up, 3-2. Borschel opening up a bit. Now leads 6-2 with 44 secs left in 2nd. Borschel wins, 9-3 to go to 174 final against Ben Bennett of CMU.

Team scores after 157 semis, 1. Iowa 133.5, 2. ISU 112, 3. Central michigan 92.

Mike Cannon (American) with a takedown for a 2-0 lead on Iowa's Phil keddy at 184. Keddy trails, 2-1, in the second. Cannon with 1:17 RT. Cannon up, 5-1, with a minute left. Cannon wins, 6-1. He faces the winner of the Ward/Caputo match.

Covington wins over Riccio of Bucknell, 9-8.

Gambrall facing Giesen of Stanford. Giesen with t2 to go up 2-0. Giesen up 3-0. Gambrall has stormed back, scoring a takedown with 36 secs left in 3rd for a 5-3 lead. Gambrall wins, 5-4.

Jerome Ward (ISU) wrestling Capouto (Harvard). Caputo up 1-0. SCored tied 1-1 with a minute left. We're in OT. No score in SV minute. Caputo rides out Ward in first 30 secs. Going to a second sudden victory minute. Caputo counters Ward on the edge and scores a T2 with 6 secs left to win, 3-1, 2SV.

Varner (ISU) up 2-1 with 1:09 RT against Beatty after the first. Varner up 3-1 with RT locked in in third. Varner wins, 4-1.

David Zabriskie (ISU) vs. Zak Rey (Lehigh) up now. Tie score, 2-2, with 1 min. left. We're in the first tiebreaker, Z with E1 and leads 3-2.  Zabriskie wins, 3-2 (OT) to advance to HWt. finals

Iowa with 3 finalists and ISU with 4. One head-to-head, which is at 125 between Iowa's Mcdonough and ISU's Andrew Long.

That's all from this session. I have to run and chase down quotes. Come back around 7 p.m. for a hit-and-miss update of the finals (I say that because I will be running around trying to get interviews which takes me away from laptop and action for long periods of time). I will do what I can.

Team scores after the semifinals: 1. Iowa 144, 2. ISU 133, 3. CMU 109.5, 4. Mizzou 87, 5. Wisconsin 78