Dec. 4, 2010
• 2010 Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational - Final Results
LAS VEGAS, Nev. - Navy senior Bryce Saddoris (Spring Creek, Nev.) and junior Luke Rebertus (Gloucester, Va.) led Navy to an 18th-place finish out of 36 teams at the 2010 Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational Saturday evening. The Mids, who made just their fifth appearance in the talent-packed event, competed against 12 of the top 30 ranked teams in this week's Intermat poll in a tournament that featured better than 75 wrestlers currently ranked in the top 20 of their respective weight classes.
Saddoris, Navy's team captain who was seeded fourth in the tournament, paved the way for the Mids' success as he was the team's top placewinner coming in third. Ranked eighth nationally at 157 pounds, Saddoris received a first-round bye before turning back Hofstra's Tyler Banks, 8-1 in the second round. He went on to crush North Idaho College's Jeremy Bommarito by way of tech fall at the 5:42 mark, setting up a quarterfinals matchup against fifth-seeded Paul Young of Indiana. Saddoris had little trouble with Young, however, scoring a 6-2 win to land a spot in the semifinals against top-seeded Bubba Jenkins of Arizona State. But Saddoris came up just short of punching his ticket into the finals, narrowly losing to Jenkins 3-2 in what was his first loss of the season.
Saddoris got a free pass into the third-place match, as Cornell's DJ Meagher was forced to forfeit the match due to injury. That set up a match between Saddoris and 11th-seeded Walter Peppelman of Harvard, who fought his way back after dropping a decision to sisth-seeded Peter Yates of Virginia Tech in the third round. In fact, Peppelman had to win five matches in his journey to face Saddoris in the third-place match, including a 9-2 victory over third-seeded Colt Sponseller of Ohio State. Peppelman's winning ways would be stymied by Saddoris, however, as the All-American scored a 5-1 win to take third.
Finishing the day with a 5-1 record, Saddoris improved to 13-1 this season and is now 123-33 over his four years. Additionally, he moved into fourth place on Navy's all-time wins list, pushing past Navy's only three-time All-American, John Reich, who amassed 119 wins from 1980-83. Saddoris trails third-place Mark Conley (1999-02) by three wins, second-place Greg Gingeleskie (1996-99) by four wins and record holder and former teammate Matt Stolpinski (2005-08) by 18.
"Bryce continues to look good and just works so hard out on the mat," said Navy head coach Bruce Burnett. "His wins were workmanlike this weekend and I continue to e proud of the way he leads this team by example day in and day out."
Meanwhile, Rebertus had a strong tournament in which he placed seventh at 184 pounds. Seeded fourth, Rebertus also received a bye in the opening round before he took down Drexel's Shawn Fausey, 13-5. He followed up with a tough match against Jake Meredith of Arizona State in which Rebertus claimed a 3-1 decision to move on to the quarters. Fifth-seeded Erich Schmditke, however, would end Rebertus' run in the championship bracket, dealing Rebertus a 7-2 loss.
In the consolation bracket, Rebertus got right back up on the horse to earn a 5-3 win over Duke's Diego Bencomo. Rebertus, however, came up short in the consolation quarters, as ninth-seeded Tony Dallago of Illinois edged out Rebertus with a 10-9 sudden death victory, sending Rebertus to the seventh-eighth place match. It also meant a rematch with Meredith who he had a tough time getting past early in the tournament. But Rebertus fought through the match and once again claimed victory over Meredith by a matching 3-1 decision to take seventh.
"Luke lost some really close matches this weekend, but I was impressed with how he wrestled," aded Burnett. "He's wrestling at a heavier weight this year and seems to have found his comfort zone. He and Bryce have some things to clean up which will help them succeed even more down the road, but we faced a great field of wrestlers this weekend. I was pleased with how hard they wrestled."
Although Saddoris and Rebertus were the only placewinners for the Midshipmen, four others advanced to the second day of action and were just one match away from placing. Junior Aaron Kalil (Salem, N.H.) came into the event seeded seventh at 125 pounds, but turned in a 2-2 record and was ousted by fourth-seeded Ben Kjar of Utah Valley, 8-2, in the first match of Saturday's consolation round.
After dropping his opening match of the tournament at 174 pounds to third-seeded Bret Klopp of Duke, 3-1, Navy senior Matt DeMichiel (Whitesboro, N.Y.) fought back to win three in a row to set up a Saturday morning matchup against second-seeded Jordan Blanton of Illinois. Blanton would prove to be too much for DeMichiel, turning back the Navy senior by a 14-3 major decision.
Like DeMichiel, Navy sophomore 197-pounder Andrew Buck (Carson, Wash.) dropped his first match of the invitational, a 6-0 decision to Drexel's Brandon Palik. And he, too, won three in a row, remarkably all by pinfall, to have the chance to face Jamelle Jones of North Idaho College in Saturday's first match of the day. Unfortunately, Buck failed to find his rhythm in the match and dropped out with a 6-0 loss to Jones.
Heavyweight Dan Miller (Berlin, Md.) also stumbled out of the starting blocks, losing a 3-1 decision to UNC Greensboro's Peter Sturgeon in the opener, but for lack of sounding like a broken record, he also won three in a row in the consolation bracket. He pinned Purdue's Rober Vukobratovich in just under three minutes and won his final match by a 3-2 count over Hofstra's Paul Snyder. But in the midst of carrying out the win in his final match of the evening, he suffered an injury and was unable to compete on Saturday.
Also representing Navy this weekend, but did not advance into Saturday's competition were Allen Stein (Portland, Maine) at 133 pounds, Joe Locksmith (Kissimmee, Fla.) at 141 pounds, Eric Filipowicz (Elkridge, Md.) at 149 pounds and Bobby Barnhisel (River Forest, Ill.) at 165 pounds.
"There are a lot of small mistakes that we are repeating and we need to fix, but overall I felt like it was a good weekend of wrestling for us. We completed really hard and pretty well taking into account for the great talent that is always at this tournament. We brought a lot of young wrestlers out here and it gave them the opportunity to not only see some of the best, but experience first-hand the best. That's what we need to continue to improve and I believe we will continue to improve."
The weekend of action continues for the Midshipmen on Sunday when 20 Navy wrestlers will take part in the 2010 Nittany Lion Open. Over 400 wrestlers are expected to compete in the Nittany Lion Open, which features both attached and unattached wrestlers from around the nation. There is no team scoring kept for this event. Live updates will be available via the web on Escape Sports' site at http://test.escapesports.com/Results/Results.php. In addition to Navy, some of the teams who are expected to send wrestlers to the Open include Army, Binghamton, Bloomsburg, Boston, Buffalo, No. 10 Central Michigan, Columbia, Drexel, Edinboro, No. 23 Hofstra, No. 15 Lehigh, Lock Haven, No. 25 Maryland, North Carolina, NC-Greensboro, Ohio, Old Dominion, No. 5 Penn State No. 17 Pittsburgh, Rider, Rutgers, The Citadel and No. 17 Virginia Tech. The tournament will take place on 14 mats (10 in the Rec Hall main arena and four in the South Gym) beginning at 8:30 am.
### Go Navy ###
