Dec. 4, 2015
Purdue Results / Tournament Central / Complete Tournament Results
#BoilerNotes
- Purdue won 19 matches during the first day of the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Collegiate Wrestling Invitational, including four major decisions, three pins and two technical falls.
- Nine of Chad Welch's dozen wins are with bonus points (4 MD, 1 TF, 4 F) ... he has already matched career season-high marks in major decisions and pins ... in 13 matches wrestled, he has only given up three takedowns.
- Danny Sabatello picked up career win No. 70 with his 4:12 pin of Boise State's Jake Velarde.
- Luke Welch posted his first career major decision with a 12-4 showing against Jordan Gurrola of San Francisco State ... Ben Thornton recorded his first technical fall, a 19-1 match vs. Patrick Kearney of The Citadel that ended at 6:57.
LAS VEGAS -- Purdue's Chad Welch made a statement by pinning second-seeded Cooper Moore of Northern Iowa to earn a spot in the 165-pound semifinals of the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Collegiate Wrestling Invitational on Friday. The 10th-seeded Boilermaker will square off against Oklahoma's third-seeded Clark Glass at 1 p.m. ET on Saturday in the Cashman Center. Alex Griffin (149) and Doug Welch (157) will be in wrestleback action starting at noon.
In the team standings, the Boilermakers are ninth with 47 points. Oklahoma is at the top with 85 points. Rounding out the top five are Missouri (81.5), Minnesota (78.5), Cornell (69) and Virginia Tech (58.5).
C. Welch's fall was the exclamation point of his three matches Friday. The redshirt senior was after Moore from the first whistle and needed just 2:25 to pin the Panther. Moore, who is currently ranked fourth nationally, stands as the biggest upset of C. Welch's career.
His path to the semifinals also included a pair of 11-2 major decisions, cruising past Air Force's Alex Lopouchanski and upending seventh-seeded Seth Thomas of Oregon State. The trio of wins lifted his season mark to 12-1.
"Chad has been very dominant and decisive with his wrestling," head wrestling coach Tony Ersland said. "The number of points in his matches reflect that he's going out there and taking charge. You see him dictating his matches because he understands the game plan and he knows he can execute it. He's got confidence."
D. Welch also appeared in the quarterfinals for Purdue, but was edged by seventh-seeded Russell Parsons of Army 6-4. Parsons escaped from the second-seeded Boilermaker after he took him down to start the match and followed with a takedown of his own. Parsons added another in the third and accumulated 2:31 of riding time.
The redshirt senior began the day by pinning Tyler Tarsi of Harvard in 5:57 and then posted a 9-5 decision over Utah Valley's Raider Lofthouse.
In Saturday's wrestlebacks, D. Welch (7-2) will look to rebound against Columbia's ninth-seeded Markus Scheidel.
After dropping a narrow 6-5 match to the No. 8 seed Geordan Martinez of Boise State, his first loss of the season, Griffin bounced back by shutting out Virginia Tech's third-seeded Sal Mastriani with an 8-0 major decision. The No. 9 seed at 149 pounds tallied a pair of first-period takedowns and added a third midway through the match.
"I liked how Griffin responded after his loss to Martinez," Ersland said. "He had a little bit of a lapse trying to close the match out and that was a disappointing way to lose, but he rebounded and has come back strong through the wrestlebacks and that is nice to see."
The redshirt junior who hails from Lafayette, Indiana, also registered decisions against Army's Mark Marchetti (4-1) and Tom Page of American (6-1) to bring his record to 7-1. His next opponent will be seventh-seeded Matt Kraus of Arizona State.
The lower weights of Purdue's lineup were eliminated from the tournament after the first session of the day as each went 1-2. The upper weights battled through wrestlebacks, but bowed out during the second session.
"We are definitely in the mix by putting ourselves in good situations, but we need to close the door in the third period," Ersland said.
Jacob Morrissey (174) and Tyler Kral (285) both finished with 2-2 marks, while Drake Stein (197) had a mark of 3-2.