by By Micah Thompson, soonersports.com
EVANSTON, Ill. – Five Sooners survived through the first two rounds of action at the 54th annual Midlands Championships, held inside Welsh-Ryan Arena on the campus of Northwestern University.
Oklahoma is in 12th place at the event with 34.5 team points. Both redshirt freshman Christian Moody (125 pounds) and redshirt senior Ross Larson (HWT) represented the Sooners in the second session’s quarterfinals round on Thursday night.
Moody impressed in the 125-pound bracket in day one, advancing to the quarterfinals by way of a 6-5 upset to No. 4-seeded Ben Thornton of Purdue before dropping an 11-4 decision to No. 5 Joshua Terao of American in his quarterfinals match. Moody went 2-1 on the day, also downing Ohio’s Hayden Lee, 11-4, in his first bout of the tournament.
Larson tallied a fall in 1:50 over Franklin & Marshall’s Antonio Pelusi and a major decision over Rider’s Mauro Correnti en route to his quarterfinals appearance. He dropped the bout by 6-2 decision to No. 3-seed Sam Stoll of Iowa. Larson’s opening pin marked the 45th of his career, and he needs just 14 more this season to break the OU career record of 58, set by Dan Chaid.
At 149 pounds, Davion Jeffries (Muscogee Creek Nation) won his first two contests, including a fall over Iowa State’s Blayne Briceno in 3:55 and a technical fall over Adam Whitesell of Maryland, 18-0. No. 2-ranked Brandon Sorenson of Iowa registered a win by fall over the sophomore in the quarterfinals, but Jeffries responded with a pin of his own in 29 seconds over Luke Blanton of Indiana and then tallied a last-second reversal in his final bout with Mitch Friedman of NDSU for a 6-5 win to advance to Friday’s action.
DaWaylon Barnes survived two second-session 157-pound consolation matches to advance to day two of the event. The junior recorded two decisions in the evening session over Pitt’s Jake Wentzel and Jake Danishek of Indiana. Barnes picked up a win by fall in 2:48 over Harvard’s Zeth Dean in his opening bout before dropping a 5-3 decision in SV-1 to Wisconsin’s TJ Ruschell to send him to the consolation bracket.
Clark Glass came out on fire in the 165-pound bracket, recording two bonus-point victories in his first two bouts. The redshirt senior won by tech fall over Grayson Davis of Ohio, 16-0, in his opening match before tallying a 14-0 major decision over Mike Sepke of Chicago. He dropped his third contest, 3-2, to Iowa’s Kaleb Young but countered with a 5-2 decision over Johnny Sebastian of Northwestern to survive the first day of competition.
Freshman Dalton Duffield (125 pounds), junior Trae Blackwell (133 pounds), junior Mike Longo (141 pounds), redshirt sophomore Noah Teaney (141 pounds), redshirt freshman Hayden Hansen (174 pounds), junior Andrew Dixon (184 pounds), redshirt sophomore Lance Dixon (184 pounds) and redshirt senior Brad Johnson (197 pounds) also competed in the event and were eliminated during first-day action.
Teams return to the mat for session three of the Midlands Championships Friday at Noon CT. Finals are set for an 8 p.m. start Friday evening. Full results from the tournament can be found on TrackWrestling.com.
