6 Spartans headed to NCAA championships

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Six MSU wrestlers are headed to this week’s NCAA championships in Omaha, Neb., and hope to follow up a successful showing at the Big Ten championships.

The Spartans are sending six wrestlers to the championships for the first time since 2003 as they finished seventh at the conference championships and saw four wrestlers secure automatic selections and two others receive at-large bids.

“We saw a lot of very good things and fortunately had two at-large selections, which is a move up for us,” head coach Tom Minkel said. “As a group we wrestled hard in every weight class.”

Four Spartans — No. 4 133-pound senior Franklin Gomez, No. 14 149-pound sophomore David Cheza, 157-pound junior Anthony Jones Jr. and 174-pound sophomore Ian Hinton — automatically qualified by finishing among the top in their weight classes.

Two weeks after dropping a tough match against Indiana’s Kurt Kinser, the unseeded Jones forced overtime in a rematch with his No. 3-seeded opponent at the first day of Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor.

Jones took down his opponent less than 30 seconds into overtime and then defeated three more seeded foes on his way to a third-place finish at the conference championships and an automatic bid to the NCAA championships.

Jones was the only unseeded wrestler to finish in the Top 3 in his class, and his effort helped spark the Spartans to a respectable seventh-place finish at the event.

“Going in, I knew I was unseeded and had to give 110 percent,” Jones said. “As a team we wrestled great, and it’s the highest we’ve placed (since I’ve been here).”

Jones won three overtime matches on the weekend, including a victory against Kinser that allowed him to compete for third place. Although he held a record of 8-16 heading in, Jones had dropped as many tight matches as anyone on the team and needed just a slight raise in his performance to put together a good run.

Two-time defending Big Ten champion Franklin Gomez dropped a semifinals heartbreaker in overtime against Iowa’s No. 2 Daniel Dennis. Dennis, the only wrestler to defeat Gomez this season, snapped Gomez’s 29-match winning streak in January.

After Gomez tied the match with eight seconds left in the third period, Dennis earned the victory in overtime when Gomez was called for a locked hands violation.

The defending national champion Gomez finished third and will use the rest of the week to prepare for his second straight national championship bid.

Hinton, the No. 7 seed in the 174-pound class, upset the No. 2 seed, Purdue’s Luke Manuel, en route to an NCAA championship-clinching performance, while Cheza used two victories on the first day of action to earn a bid.

Seniors Kyle Bounds of the 165-pound class and Nick Palmieri of the 184-pound class earned at-large bids.

The Spartans (8-8-1, 2-6 Big Ten) showed progress after finishing 11th the past two seasons at the Big Ten championships, and will hope to continue the success at the NCAA championships, which run Thursday through Saturday.

“Everyone’s really excited,” Hinton said. “I think it shows where the program’s going and that we’re making progress.”

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