MU wrestling begins season by defeating itself

The black squad beat gold, 25-24.

By Nick Forrester

Published Nov. 10, 2008

The wrestling team confirmed two things on Saturday during its annual Black and Gold match.

One, they are stacked from the 157-pound weight class through the heavyweights. Secondly, there's still a lot of competition for the starting spots from the 125-pound weight class to the 149-pound weight class.

Senior Marcus Hoehn is the only wrestler in the lower weight classes who has seen experience in an MU uniform. Hoehn easily won his match on Saturday, defeating freshman Nick Hucke of the Gold squad by a score of 10-5.

Last season, the 125-pound weight class was a weak spot for MU. That likely won't be the case this season, as red-shirt freshman Troy Dolan will be the starter. On Saturday, Dolan wrestled 133-pound sophomore Luke Cherep. Dolan lost to Cherep in a 10-8 match.

"We knew (Dolan) was going to battle with Luke," coach Brian Smith said. "I like some of the stuff he did. He's just got to finish his shots."

Senior Michael Chandler is looking for his fourth trip to the NCAA Championships and to finish better than in his first three appearances, where he was unable to place.

But before Chandler can worry about qualifying for the tournament in March, he has to worry about securing a spot in the starting lineup.

On Saturday, Chandler was upset in the final seconds of the match, when senior Emanuel Brooks took him down with one second remaining on the way to earning a 3-2 victory. Brooks not only defeated Chandler at the buzzer, but he also defeated red-shirt freshman Patrick Wright earlier in the day with a last-second takedown, winning 3-1.

"I can't tell you who's going to be the guy at the Big 12 tournament, that's up to them," Smith said.

Junior Nick Marable started his campaign to win the national championship by defeating freshman Todd Porter by 10 points, finishing the match 14-4. Marable is currently ranked No. 1 in the nation at 165 pounds.

"I worked this year on attacking more and being more aggressive," Marable said. "My defense sets up a lot of my offense. I forced (Porter) to take bad shots, and that's where I scored most of my points."

Sophomore Todd Schavrien, a transfer from Arizona State, will replace All-American Tyler McCormick of last year's squad. On Saturday, Schavrien defeated McCormick's younger brother, freshman Nathan McCormick, 8-0. All of Schavrien's points came in the final three minutes of the match.

"I came out a little sluggish, and I realized that I needed to turn it on, so I did," Schavrien said.

The teams were split evenly, with the black squad defeating the gold squad, 25-24, in a meet that went down to the final match to decide the winner.

"It's a long season," Smith said. "We have some really good depths at some weights, so we'll just see what happens."