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2006-07 Season News(Click on story heading to read story)
NCWA Nationals
By Allie Santiago, Managing Editor of The Vantage
With the special privilege of competing in a postseason national tournament for Newman during its NCAA Div.-II transition, the Jets wrestling team showed a strong performance at the NCWA Nationals this past weekend, placing 17th out of 67.
Individual placers for the team included sophomore Isaac Wall in third place at 133-lbs. and red shirt sophomore Clay Goodloe with eighth place at 141-lbs. Both earned All-American status for their placings.
Both Wall and Goodloe lost in the quarterfinals, Wall to the eventual runner-up of his bracket and Goodloe to the eventual champion. They came back to place, however, as Wall went 6-1 in the tournament and Goodloe 4-3.
“For Isaac to go 6-1, he wrestled very well in the tournament,” coach Mark Stovall said. “I never have any doubt going in on how he’s going to compete. Clay had been out for one and a half to two months due to injury, so the endurance aspect of the three-day tournament is what hurt him. Had he had another three weeks of training, I believe he could have been in the finals.”
Goodloe, despite being unhappy with his overall performance, said that he was relieved he was able to place.
“I did not have a great tournament as a whole,” Goodloe said. “But I’m glad I was still able to pull it out and place. Next year, I will be hungry for the win and hope to perform better.”
With two All-Americans and a 17th place finish, Stovall was still not satisfied with his team. A handful of unfortunate losses knocked the team out of the top ten.
“I was happy that we had two All-Americans,” Stovall said. “We should have had more, but the cards did not fall our way.”
There were four wrestlers who were one match away from placing in the tournament. At 133-lbs., Kyle Oyler lost to a wrestler whom he defeated earlier at conference. At 141, Aeron Hill was up 5-1 in his match, but got pinned in the third period to lose the match. Rowdy Palmer lost in overtime at 149-lbs., and Andrew Nash faced a controversial stalling call to lost his match at 157-lbs.
“We had a few guys that could not position themselves well in the later rounds of the tournament and did not earn All-American status,” Goodloe said.
Although the the NCWA is a program set up for club wrestling, Stovall, Goodloe, and Wall all agreed that the competition at the tournament was tougher than they expected.
“There was nothing ‘club’ about Grand Valley State [the championship team of the tournament],” Stovall said. “They were unbelievable.”
Wall agreed, and Stovall said that the champion of Wall’s bracket was a four-time state high school champion from Michigan.
“This tournament was a lot tougher than I thought,” Wall said. “Some of our brackets were stacked.”
Along with the tough competition faced, the team was also happy to find that the NCWA was set up strictly for wrestling and did not involve rules that can take away from the nature of the sport.
“This organization is made strictly for wrestling, so there is no bureaucracy involved,” Stovall said. “I was surprised at the level of competition we faced. The organization is only 10 years old, and given another five years, it is going to be very solid.”
Goodloe said that the lack of a bureaucracy in the organization makes for a better experience for him.
“I like it better because we find more competition than NAIA and you don’t have to abide by as many rules,” Goodloe said. “It’s all about wrestling.”
Overall, Stovall said that the tournament provided information on what the team needs to work on.
“I think for being such a young team who had not competed at this level, our performance at this tournament showed that we need to work on intensity and how to compete at a national tournament,” Stovall said. “Everyone wrestled hard. The tournament just exposed our weaknesses and showed that we need to get stronger and more aggressive.”
The team will now work in the weight room and the classroom, as some of the men will prepare to wrestle in the spring.
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Newman Wrestling Produces its 1st National Champion
Saturday night, Curtis Chenoweth won the NAIA national title at 174lbs.; He becomes the first national champion in Newman Wrestling history. On Friday Chenoweth won his first match with a score of 14-5, and followed that up with a quarterfinals win with a score of 12-3. On Saturday, in the semifinals Chenoweth came from 5 down to tie the match with 3 seconds remaining on the clock. He eventually won the match by riding his opponent out, then getting an escape for the win. That score was 6-5. In the finals the match was close from the start. Kummer of Great Falls scored a takedown early in the match, but Chenoweth countered with a quick reversal to tie the score. Kummer was then able to get an escape just before the end of the period leading with a score of 3-2. In the second period Chenoweth chose bottom, getting a quick escape and tying the match 3-3. The period ended in the 3-3 tie. Kummer chose bottom again in the third. After getting an escape, he took the lead at 4-3. Chenoweth continued to battle scoring a takedown off a high crotch to take the lead 5-4 with 30 seconds left on the clock. Kummer was able to escape, sending the match to sudden death. In overtime each wrestler made strong attempts to win the title. Chenoweth hit a lateral drop to score the winning takedown with 6 seconds left on the clock. Curtis Chenoweth is a 165 pound freshman out of Clearwater, KS.
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Newman Wrestling Finishes 12th at the NAIA National Championships
Newman University was ranked 18th in the country and carried high hopes into the National Tournament held in Sioux City, IA this past weekend. Although they did not finish at the top, the Jets performed well. They finished in 12th place and produced the first National Champion in the programs history. After the Friday morning first session Newman was in 8th place with six of the eight wrestlers that competed still in the tournament. Of those six, three were in the quarterfinals. In the evening session Newman took some tough losses with Isaac Wall losing an overtime match to eventual 4th place winner Chris Sampo of Lindenwood. Senior Brad Lies lost his quarterfinals match to the eventual 2-time National Champion Mike Rio. Curtis Chenoweth was the only Newman wrestler to make it through this round, and he did it with a dominating performance. On the backside Steven Sprague picked up a big win by fall to add to the Newman point total, but was eliminated from the tournament in his next match. Returning All-American JD Johnson picked up a crucial pair of wins. One of them he won by fall to put him in the All-American round.
It was in the All-American round that Newman took the biggest hit. During that round, which determines the remaining All-Americans Wall was defeated by Craig Trampe of Dana, Brad Lies was defeated by Kyle Bickford of Menlo, and JD Johnson was defeated by Ryan Mattingly of Montana State Northern. On Saturday morning the only remaining Newman wrestler Curtis Chenoweth won his semi-finals match in sudden victory. He would later win the National Championship match with a sudden death victory on a lateral drop with six seconds remaining to seal the victory. The 12th place finish was an improvement on its previous 16th place finish a year before.
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