DES MOINES, Iowa – After heading into Saturday's morning session with aspirations of third place finishes at the NAIA National Championships,
Jordan Martinez and
Jaedin Sklapsky each split their two matches, finishing the day with wins for seventh place.
Martinez dropped his consolation bracket fifth round match against Trevor Murano of Grand View by a 4-1 decision before winning the seventh place match against Alexander Nunez of Life Pacific in a 5-3 decision.
Sklapsky also fell in his fifth round match in the consolation bracket, his came by sudden victory as Ethan Owen of Southeastern earned an overtime takedown to win 9-7. In his seventh place match, the senior won by major decision over Devin Poppen of Souther Oregon to end his CU career a winner and an All-American.
Friday's matches ended with Martinez (125) and Sklapsky (141) earning All-American honors on the consolation side of the bracket after winning their fourth round matches.
Those two CU wrestlers are were alive for a third place finish as Martinez and Sklapsky won three matches apiece in the consolation bracket after losing their first championship bracket match. Martinez won twice by major decision and his final match of the day by a 9-5 decision. Every one of Sklapsky's matches ended in a decision with a 6-3 loss and wins by scores of 8-4, 6-3, and 9-2.
The furthest a Tiger advanced on the championship side of things was the quarterfinals as
Mahlic Sallah (174) won his first two matches before falling to Lucius Van Rensburg of Life University. Sallah went on to lose his first match in the consolation bracket, in the "blood round" which is the round where winners move to All-American.
Michael Diemer (157) was the only Tiger outside of Sallah to earn a victory in the championship rounds with his first round win over Bobby Ehman of University of the Cumberlands by a 5-0 decision. Diemer lost his next match before winning one and losing one in the blood round of the consolation bracket.
Kolten Radaz (133),
Marvin Galette (133),
Aaron Mosley (184),
David Richardson (197), and
Ashton Mutuwa (285) picked up wins and four of them made the blood round but were unable to pick up that final win to become All-Americans.
Saturday's action wrapped up competition for the Tiger wrestling program for the 2018-19 season as CU finished with a 12-9 duals record, a conference champion in Martinez and the two All-Americans of Martinez and Sklapsky. The Tigers placed 14th as a team.
