NCAA: Iowa puts 8 in quarterfinals

OMAHA, Neb. – Iowa started a methodical march toward a third straight national title at the NCAA championships Thursday night.
The Hawkeyes advanced eight of their 10 wrestlers to the quarterfinals and finished the meet’s first day with 34.5 points. Oklahoma State was second with 26 points and Iowa State third with 24.
“We’ve got to keep a good thing going,” Iowa coach Tom Brands said.
Iowa’s quarterfinalists are No. 2 seeds Daniel Dennis (133), Brent Metcalf (149) and Jay Borschel (174); No. 3 Matt McDonough (125), No. 5 Daniel Erekson (heavyweight), No. 6 Montell Marion (141), No. 7 Ryan Morningstar (165) and No. 9 Phillip Keddy (184).
“We’ve still got a lot of work to do,” Brands said. “For the most part I feel like we wrestled better tonight than we did this morning. I explained this morning that we were maybe looking out at the other guy a little too much. Tonight it seemed like we were attacking from the get-go a little bit better.”
Iowa’s only losses were by unseeded 157-pounder Jake Kerr, to Harvard’s top-seeded J.P. O’Connor in the second round, and by No. 9 Chad Beatty, to Oklahoma State’s Alan Gelogaev in the first round.
The Hawks are bidding for their record 23rd title in the tournament’s 80-year history.
“It’s very important to us,” said Morningstar, a senior who’s competing on a bad right knee. “We’ve won two of them in my class, and we want to go out and get this third one and end our careers on a high note.”
While Iowa did the expected, a little-known sophomore from Boston University pulled the upset of the day. Unseeded Fred Santaite scored a takedown in the final seconds to beat 125-pound defending champion Troy Nickerson of Cornell 2-1 in the second round.
Santaite overcame a broken right ankle two years ago and major surgery on his left knee last year. He was wrestling Nickerson for the first time. Down 1-0, he made his winning move out of desperation after looking at the clock and seeing 13 seconds left.
“I got put in a front headlock, and I was getting a little nervous, but I stuck in there and I just went for it,” he said. “When I got in position where I knew I was going to get 2 (points), I looked at the clock and there was like 2 and 1, and it was just awesome.”
Santaite started the season as a 125-pounder, moved to 133 and then returned to 125 the final weekend of the dual season. He was 9-3 at 125.