JOHNSTOWN, PA (February 27, 2010) - Six wrestlers placed at the Super Region I wrestling tournament with three earning a trip to nationals as Kutztown placed fourth out of 15 teams. Team Standings | Individual Brackets
Newberry College finished in first place with 120 points, while Gannon (103.5) and Pitt-Johnstown (99) placed just ahead of the Golden Bears 83 points. North Carolina-Pembroke rounded out the top five with 75 points.
"I am pleased with our teams performance this weekend," said head coach Rob Fisher. "I wish we could have had more qualifiers, but three is still a good number. Placing fourth in this field of competition is also a great accomplishment."
Juniors Tim Darling, Kevin Bolinsky (Ashland, PA/North Schuylkill) and Scott Snyder each placed within the top four to punch their ticket to Omaha on Friday March 12 and Saturday March 13.
Darling lived up to the hype of the No. 1 seed at 184 pounds with a perfect 5-0 effort to earn his first trip to the Division II nationals. To make the victory even sweeter, Darling avenged his only loss in the regular season with a 5-4 decision over East Stoudsburg's Shane Mallory. He carried that momentum into the championship round winning by fall in 68 seconds over No. 3 seed Pat Walsh.
"Tim had a tough semifinal match, but he battled through it," said Fisher. "It was a great way to win, avenging the only person to beat him on the season. He wanted to win and that is what he did."
Bolinksy and Snyder each had to battle through the consolation brackets to earn third and fourth place, respectively.
In the stacked 285 pound class, No. 2 seed Bolinsky won by decision in his three matches on Saturday, starting with a 4-0 win over Fred Hale in the wrestleback quarterfinals. He followed that up with a 3-1 decision over No. 5 Eric Stancil. Bolinksy completed his run with another 3-1 decision, this time over No. 4 J.D. Ramsey to take third place to earn his first trip to nationals.
Snyder fell 3-1 to No. 2 seed Shane Nolan in the quarterfinal round to head to the consolation bracket. He then edged out Mercyhurst's Chris Nocchi to assure his second consecutive trip to the national tournament. In the fight for third place, Snyder dropped his bout to Mitch Knapp to finish fourth.
"Kevin and Scott wrestled great all weekend," said Fisher. "They both had difficult brackets, but they kept winning and fought through the wrestlebacks."
Chris Sheetz fell 6-4 in the quarterfinal round to eventual runner-up Russell Weakley. He then dropped a bout to Ryan Link. That set up a rematch with Jason Fleming with Sheetz again winning by fall, this time in five minutes, 40 seconds to take fifth place.
Austin Williams (133 pounds) and John Paukovits (141 pounds) also had fifth place finishes for the Golden Bears. Paukovits had a 6-2 setback in the quarterfinal round to eventual champion Jeremy Parker of Limestone. He just missed out on a bid for third place, falling 3-2 in overtime to Gannon's Andrew Milanak.
The Golden Bears will be sending three wrestlers to the NCAA Championship for the first time since 2007, where KU standout Joe Kemmerer won his first of two national titles.
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