Six of those wrestlers were perfect on Day 1, advancing into the finals of their respective weight classes. The other three will compete for third place.

“I felt like we overachieved sending six guys to the finals,” said head coach Tom Borrelli. “Looking at the seeding, we were probably only supposed to put five guys in and Scott Mattingly came through for us and made the finals at 141.”

CMU leads the pack with 50 points after opening day, and expected front-runner Kent State is tied with Buffalo for second with 43.5 points. KSU will send five wrestlers into the finals, while Buffalo will wrestle four.

Sophomore Christian Cullinan took an earlier 2-1 lead in the first period of the preliminaries, but two third-period takedowns led to a 6-5 Jared Germaine (EMU) decision.

“Anytime you can get momentum going, that’s real important,” Borrelli said. “Christian lost a real close match, and we felt like each guy kind of fed on each other and that’s important in tournaments.”

CMU won its next four bouts, including a major decision by Scott Mattingly and a technical fall by Scotti Sentes. Donnie Corby and Ryan Cubberly each picked up decisions.

The second half of the lineup saw less action as three of the last five Chippewa wrestlers drew preliminary byes.

Craig Kelliher and Chad Friend, who switched positions late in the season, split their preliminary matches. Friend won by a 7-3 decision, and Kelliher gave up a third-period escape, falling to third-seed Jimmy Hamel 3-2.

Semifinals

CMU continued its success into the semifinal round.

Sentes was the first of six Chippewas to win second round matches, needing only 1:16 to pin Northern Illinois’ Kevin Fanta.? Mattingly got on top early with a takedown in each of the first two periods, and held on despite a late takedown by Tristen DeShazer (NIU) to win 8-6. Corby followed suit with an 8-2 decision, building up a riding time of more than four minutes.

Cubberly dropped a 1-0 decision in the semifinals, but pulled out a 4-3 sudden victory decision to stay alive in the consolation round.

Wrestling only one match each on the day, Mike Miller, Ben Bennett and Jarod Trice all picked up decisions.

Trice said two-day tournaments are pretty tough, but it gets the team ready for the national tournament.

“It gives us a feel for what the tournament, which is a three-day event, is going to be like,” he said.

Chad Friend suffered a 22-9 major decision to top-seeded Dustin Kilgore, and Craig Kelliher lost a 3-2 decision to close out the day.

The tournament will conclude Sunday with the fifth and sixth place matches at 12 noon, and the championship finals and consolation finals starting at 1 p.m.

“It’s hard to make young teams understand until they’ve been through it, and then they realize what they have to do to maintain that success,” Borrelli said.

CMU's Sunday schedule: 125 pounds – Consolation finals: Christian Cullinan vs. Sean Walton (Buffalo) 133 pounds – Finals: Scott Sentes vs. Tyler Smalls (Kent State) 141 pounds – Finals: Scott Mattingly vs. Andrew Schutt (Buffalo) 149 pounds – Finals: Donnie Corby vs. Desi Green (Buffalo) 157 pounds – Consolation Finals: Ryan Cubberly vs. Aaron Sulzer (Eastern Michigan) 165 pounds – Finals: Mike Miller vs. John-Martin Cannon (Buffalo) 174 pounds – Finals: Ben Bennett vs. Nick Purdue (Ohio) 184 pounds – Consolation Finals: Craig Kelliher vs. Jimmy Hammel (Buffalo) 197 pounds: Chad Friend eliminated 285 pounds – Finals: Jarod Trice vs. Brendan Barlow (Kent State)