Jan. 25, 2008

Final Results

USAFA, Colo. - Injuries played a key roll in a defeat as Utah Valley was forced to forfeit two weight classes and wrestled without one of its best wrestlers in a 33-6 Western Wrestling Conference dual loss to Air Force.

UV falls to 5-6 (1-1, WWC) with the defeat while Air Force improved to 5-6 and 1-0 in conference action. Utah Valley's Ben Kjar set a school record for wins in a season as he recorded his 31st victory of the year.

"I thought our guys wrestled ok given the circumstances," UV head coach Greg Williams said. "We were in almost every match. I thought we would have been pretty evenly matched had we been healthy."

Kjar got the Wolverines on the board first, recording a 10-4 decision to set the school individual record. Kjar controlled the match that was often stopped due to blood from AFA's Zach Valdez. Kjar fell just two points short of a major decision in the win. The win put Kjar at 2-0 against conference opponents as he pinned his counterpart from South Dakota State in the Wolverines first WWC dual.

After forfeiting the 133 weight class due to injuries to UV's Logan Wilson and Flint Ray, the Wolverines Jeff Newby fell in a 7-3 decision to Jake Kriegbaum. Kriegbaum won the match in the early moments after recording a takedown and a three-point near fall in the first minute of the match. Newby fought back, outscoring Kriegbaum 3-2 for the rest of the match, but fell short.

Nathan Gardner stepped in at 149 for an injured Sam Allen but fell in a decision to AFA team captain Chris Szabolcs. Although wrestling up from his typical 141-pound weight class, Gardner held his own against Scabolcs but fell 8-1.

In the 157-pound match the Falcons' Tony Doward took a first round 4-2 lead with a pair of takedowns. Kearsley responded with escapes from each takedown then cut the deficit to 4-3 on an escape to start the second round. The score remained the same until Doward recorded a decisive reversal to go ahead 6-3 and eventually win the match 8-5.

After the Wolverines were forced to forfeit the 165-pound match due to a late-week injury to Gehrhart Vuksinick, Marc Fenwick scored for UV to cut the Falcons team lead to 21-6 and keep the Wolverines mathematically alive in the dual. Fenwick controlled Air Force's Tyler French, winning by an 8-1 decision mark.

In one of the more exciting matches of the dual, Casen Eldredge fell to Jake Devlin, 10-8 in a back-and-forth 184-pound match. Eldredge fell behind 4-1 early in the match after a pair of Devlin takedowns. Eldredge fought back, scoring an escape and a takedown to finish the round tied at four. After falling behind 7-4 heading into the final round, then falling behind 9-5 in the round itself, Eldredge made a frantic comeback, cutting the lead to 9-8. Devlin was able to hold him off for the win.

After James Ciccone pinned UV's Zach Williams late in the match, UV's Billy Green and Air Force's Tony Stegeman wrestled to the final seconds with Stegeman recording the win on a second-round escape and riding time in the third round.

The Wolverines will return to action when they wrestle in the Tracy Borah Duals tomorrow.