ATHERTON, Calif.— Led by a runner-up finishes from seniors
Jason Buhr and
TJ Lodermeier at 165 and 197 pounds, respectively, the Colorado Mesa University Maverick wrestling team had six individual placers and took second amongst 13 squads in the team standings on Saturday at the Menlo Open held here in the Oaks' Haynes-Prim Pavilion.
Meanwhile,
Daniel Van Hoose (149), Seth Lathem (174),
Nolan Krone (184) each placed third while
Tim Romero took fourth at 125 pounds.
Buhr recorded pins in each of his first two matches needing just one minute and 30 seconds to take out Carter Bozovich of the host squad before pinning Simpson's Noah Marquez to reach the semifinals. He then scored an 8-6 win over Alejandro Garcia of Menlo before falling by a tight 11-10 margin to unattached Tyler Eischens, who is on Division I Stanford's roster.
Lodermeier also picked up a win by fall in his opening match pinning Thomas Schmitt of Menlo in just 1:40. He then scored 2-0 wins over both Jeremiah Smith of Life Pacific and Mitchell Kotschevar of Minnesota State-Moorhead in the quarterfinals and semifinals. The shutout of the Kotschevar was his second and as many days against the Dragons. Lodermeier was then defeated for the second time in two days by Andrew Herrera of San Francisco State.
Van Hoose also advanced to the championship semifinals with two pins and a 16-1 technical fall but was downed 5-3 in the semifinals. He bounced back to defeat Maverick teammate
Kyle Kintz in the consolation semifinals and claimed third place by default as Cal Poly's Tyler Schilling had reached his maximum number of matches.
Lathem had a similar path to his third place effort recording an 18-0 technical fall win in his opening match before pinning Schreiner's Alex Alberto is just 51 seconds. He was then defeated by Logan Nelson of Simon Fraser before getting a 7-3 consolation semifinal win over unattached Jacob Mendoza. Lathem then pinned Menlo's Young An in 51 seconds to put an exclamation point on his day.
Krone also reached the semifinals with a fall and 16-3 major decision win. He then fell into the consolation bracket before pinning teammate Patrick Romero to set up a third place match with Evan Foster, who he pinned in Friday's dual win over Minnesota State-Moorhead. Krone picked up another win recording an 8-0 shutout in Saturday's re-match.
Tim Romero went 3-2 with a pair of major decision wins.
Menlo won the team title with 148 points while the Mavericks had 123 to easily out-pace Simon Fraser (89.5) and the rest of the field, which included four Division II squads.
The Mavericks will now return home to host Simon Fraser in a non-conference dual on Thursday at 6 p.m. following a 5 p.m. women's dual against Lindenwood.
