by Kearney, Neb. – Senior Romero Cotton and junior Destin McCauley (Omaha Tribe) won individual national championships as the Nebraska-Kearney wrestling team placed third at the 2016 NCAA Championships Saturday night in Sioux Falls, S.D.
The Lopers, ranked fifth coming into the two-day meet, had five All-Americans to tally 78.50 points. This is UNK’s 15th straight Top 10 finish and fifth straight Top 3 finish.
St. Cloud State scored 90.0 points to repeat as team national champions with Notre Dame (Ohio) College the runner up (82.0). The SCSU Huskies had just one national champ, Brett Velasquez (125 lbs.) of Bennington, but had six others in the top seven.
Wrestling about an hour away from his hometown of North Sioux City, McCauley had the most dramatic win among the 10 finals matches. Facing true freshman Isaac Dulgarian of NDC in the 149 pound finals, McCauley found himself down 4-3 with the third period coming to a quick close.
With around 10 seconds left, McCauley went deep into his pocket, grabbing Dulgarian up high Greco Roman style and throwing him to the ground for not only a takedown but 4-near fall points.
“I knew time was short. I was hoping to open him up a bit, start moving. He was backing up so I really had no choice but to go upper body,” said McCauley. “I don’t think I’ve ever been down in match and had to do something like that at the end.”
By winning 9-4 over Dulgarian, McCauley (22-5) helps UNK win this class for the third time in the last five years as Raufeon Stots placed first in 2013 and 2014.
At 197 pounds, Cotton (Hutchinson, Kan.) was hoping to join a select group of Division II individuals with three or four national titles to their credit.
In the past two years, he’s had to rally late in the third period like McCauley in order to win.
Tonight, Cotton took down Northern State’s Joe Gomez at 1:42 of the first period and then rode him out to build up riding time.
Admittedly, he ran a bit after that but Gomez never caught him. The final score was 4-1 as Cotton escaped in the second period.
“Every time I’ve wrestled this guy before, he’s taken down first and that’s usually my thing. He’s a lot faster than other guys at this class. I got the first takedown, made sure I got the riding time and then ran,” said Cotton.
Cotton and senior Daniel DeShazer (133 lbs.) join Ali Elias (’93), Bryce Abbey (’05), Jeff Sylvester (’06) and Tervel Dlagnev (’08) as UNK’s four-time All-Americans. Cotton, with 74 career wins, is the Lopers first-ever three-time national champ.
“It feels awesome. It’s taken a lot of hard work and dedication to win these titles. I want thank all my coaches and my practice partners for staying true to the plan. They came in after class and made sure I was at the level I needed to be to win this championship,” said Cotton.
UNK’s other All-Americans this weekend were Calvin Ochs (4th/174 lbs.) and Keith Surber (8th/141 lbs.).
Congratulations Dustin on your win (tons of hard work and practice went into it).
Your followers from Minnesota, the Parkos family
Great job!! You make the Omaha tribe proud!!
Great job Destin. To your continued success.