Johnnie Wrestling Alumni, Fans, Friends, and Parents,
Welcome to the Saint John’s University wrestling blog! We are starting this in an effort to keep you informed about our results, practices and events. Most importantly, we want to give you an up-close view of what we are doing in our program and how we are developing our student-athletes. During the season, this will be a weekly posting. Please encourage friends and family to subscribe to this blog as we continue to build our fan base for Johnnie Wrestling!
We hope you’re having a terrific start to your 2017! We began our New Year with a great weekend of duals. First, we competed at Cretin-Derham Hall against St. Olaf. Our guys performed great in front of a fantastic crowd filled with high school wrestlers, family, and Johnnie wrestling alumni, winning the dual 42-8.
There was a quick turnaround after the win against the Oles, as we left for the University of Chicago to participate in the Chicago Duals. We were originally scheduled for three duals against Wabash, Manchester and MSOE. After arriving, Jon McGovern (Dubuque Head Coach) and I agreed on wrestling an extra dual in the 4th round of the event.
We finished the day with a 4-0 record to improve our season record to 5-0. We won a competitive match against Wabash, 28-16, beat MSOE 41-6, and earned the extra dual win against Dubuque, 28-13. The match of the day, however, was against Manchester. After the first five matches, the dual score was 3-21! We came to life in the second half of the dual with five straight wins, including a major decision win by senior Teddy Erickson (After getting taken down to his back to start the match) and a fall by senior heavyweight Colin Fisher to win the dual 22-21. The day was highlighted by several undefeated wrestlers. Erickson and freshman Noah Becker both finished the day 4-0. Fisher, senior Rob Tait and and sophomore Luke Dodd were 3-0.
Our next two events were duals against MSU-Mankato and Ridgewater. We lost the dual against Mankato 3-38, with the lone win by Tait at 197 pounds. We bounced back with a win against Ridgewater, 34-12.
Most recently, we traveled to Minneapolis to take on the #2 ranked Auggies. Although we lost the dual, we saw a lot of great fight in our student-athletes and won three matches at 157, 174 and 197. Freshman Jerod Novak was competing against returning All-American Grant Parker. Jerod got the first takedown before the match was cut short due to a Parker injury. Erickson won at 174 by technical fall, avenging a loss from earlier in the year, and Tait continued to look great in a very controlled win at 197 pounds to move his record to 7-1.
Next up on the schedule is a dual against two-time defending Division II champions St. Cloud State on Thursday, Jan. 26, and our North Country Open on Sunday, Jan. 29. Come out and support our wrestlers!
Please follow our social media sites on Facebook (Saint John’s University (SJU) Wrestling, MN Fan Page), Twitter (@SJU_Wrestling), and Instagram (johnnie_wrestling). We regularly post on these sites included segments “Throwback Thursday” and “Takedown of the Week”.
Thanks for your continued support of SJU Wrestling and have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!