Kaufman-Brand Open, Nov. 17
The championship season got off to an appropriate start for the Iowa wrestlers.
Six Hawkeyes claimed individual titles at the Kaufman-Brand Open in Omaha, Neb. — a significant improvement over the previous year when Iowa only came away with one champion.
Charlie Falck, Joey Slaton, Brent Metcalf, Mark Perry Jr., Phil Keddy and Matt Fields captured titles for the Hawkeyes. Falck rolled through the tournament with a technical fall, a pin and a 9-2 win against Marcos Orozco of Cal-Davis in the finals at 125 pounds.
Slaton notched two pins and outscored his other three opponents at 133 by a collective 32-10 margin. Metcalf posted a 6-0 win in the 149-pound championship against Jordan Burroughs of Nebraska.
In his first tournament since winning the 165-pound NCAA title in 2007, Perry opened his senior season with three pins in five matches on his way to a title in Omaha. He pinned Northern Iowa’s Moza Fay in the finals.
“When you have a chance to win championships and you win championships, that’s a good thing,” Iowa coach Tom Brands said. “You’d like to think we would’ve been in it for 10 individual titles, and instead we won six. But I tell you what, you look at seizing the opportunity and that’s what we did. We know we have work to do, and the work’s being done. They’re working at it right away.”
— Andy Hamilton