Walz, VA Tech Take Out Wolverines

It was an exciting, but unsuccessful end to the dual season for the host Michigan Wolverines as Virginia Tech left Ann Arbor with a 24-11 victory. 

The main event of Ty Walz (defeating Adam Coon for the 3rd time) was only a small fraction of an amazing show put on by the top ten teams. 

Joey Dance was able to avenge his Bloodround loss to Conor Youtsey during a triple overtime match that has to be a "match of the year" candidate. It was an amazing trade of buzzer beating moves to keep the match going before Dance, who looked dead to rights, somehow scrambled out of a Youtsey shot to get the takedown in SV2. 

Bruno coasted to a nice victory before his teammate, George Fisher, nearly pulled off a huge upset with a late comeback. Pantaleo responded with a pounding tech fall over Mastriani, and Michigan appeared to have momentum going towards sending the Hokies home with a tough loss. However, after Brian Murphy got a takedown and over a minute riding time with a couple near misses on turns, fellow All-American Brascetta turned it on to win 4-3 making it 9-8 Hokies at the break. 

Michigan broke the information today that 165 Garrett Sutton will miss the remainder of the season after suffering a broken jaw in Friday's practice. This is tough news with 174 Davonte Mahomes being out with a torn ACL leaving two backup 157's to wrestle the next two classes. 

The final three matches were highly anticipated featuring all competitors boasting a top ten ranking. At 184, the match was an odd one once Zavatsky won a great scramble after Abounader fell off balance on a shot attempt. Zavatsky was hit for multiple stall calls as they kept going out of bounds and the drop down rule came in effect. The Hokie was impressive winning many scrambles but was hit for another stall when Abounader fired off several unanswered shots in the end of regulation. The match eventually ended up with rideouts when Abounader did his thing. 

At 197, Jared Haught fought off several deep attacks from Huntley and fired off some great ones as well. In the last ten seconds of regulation it appeared they were headed for another overtime match, but a beautifully timed shot gave Haught the takedown and the win that could be a huge seeding boost for the Hokie at NCAA's. 

Ty Walz fired off an extremely well timed single leg and elevated it for a great finish to get the one takedown in the match. Coon was never able to really threaten Walz who stayed in a great position and continues to be a terrible matchup with the Wolverine big man. This is Walz 3rd victory over Coon. 

125: No. 3 Joey Dance dec. No. 20 Conor Youtsey, 11-9 (SVOT)
133: No. 18 Rossi Bruno dec, Dennis Gustafson, 5-1
141: No. 8 Solomon Chishko dec. George Fisher, 6-5
149: No. 6 Alec Pantaleo tech. fall Sal Mastriani , 19-4
157: No. 5 Nick Brascetta dec. No. 13 Brian Murphy, 4-3
165: No. 14 David McFadden maj. dec. Jordan Amine 11-3
174: No. 3 Zach Epperly tech. fall Aaron Calderon, 20-5
184: No. 2 Domenic Abounader dec. No. 7 Zack Zavatsky, 5-3 (TB1)
197: No. 7 Jared Haught dec. No. 6 Max Huntley 5-1
HWT: No. 3 Ty Walz dec. No. 4 Adam Coon, 3-2