Wrestling opens home stand with 28-9 win against Old Dominion
The Central Michigan wrestling team kicked off its three-meet home stand at McGuirk in dominating fashion Friday night.
CMU defeated Old Dominion, 28-9 to improve to 4-2 overall and 2-2 in the Mid-American Conference.
The last two matches of the night featured matchups against top 20 ranked wrestlers.
Senior Austin Severn defeated Kevin Beazley by pinfall with three seconds remaining in the second period. This was not the first matchup between Severn and Beazley.
“I wrestled him before,” said Severn. “He beat me in the Midlands tournament. I knew I had to get moving in the second. I had a slow first period. I knew my conditioning would be good. That’s when I turned it on.”
Head coach Tom Borrelli said he was impressed with Severn's ability to battle back and claim the victory.
“I was really happy for Austin,” he said. “That’s a big win for him. He wrestled a quality opponent.”
Borrelli said he was happy with the win despite losing three close matches on the night.
“Obviously you don’t like to lose,” he said. “Mason Smith was right in his match, Logan Parks was right in his match, (Jordan) Ellingwood was in his match. We were competitive, that’s what you’re looking for.”
Junior Newton Smerchek opened the meet with a 4-1 win in the 285-pound match, his first victory in MAC play.
Junior Brent Fleetwood added on with a 10-2 major decision over freshman Steven Simpson in the 125 bout.
Senior Corey Keener won his matchup at 133, 6-0, which gave CMU an early 10-0 lead.
Sophomore Justin Oliver and junior Colin Heffernan each continued their strong start to the season with victories at 149 and 157, respectively.
Junior CJ Brucki improved to 21-5 on the season with an 8-5 victory over freshman Antonio Agee.
CMU is back in action for the second of a three-meet home stand Sunday at 2 p.m. against Northern Illinois.
“Northern Illinois is going to try to wrestle low scoring matches,” Borrelli said. “We have to figure out how to score points.”
Sunday’s meet can also be seen on ESPN 3.
