Central Michigan University Athletics
All-American Roth Wins Finale, Places 7th at NCAA
3/22/2014 12:00:00 AM | Wrestling
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. – He walked off the mat a winner, and an All-American.
Central Michigan University’s Joe Roth defeated Cody Brewer of Oklahoma, 8-6, Saturday to place seventh at 133 pounds at the NCAA Wrestling Championships at Chesapeake Energy Arena.
By virtue of finishing in the top eight, Roth earned All-America honors and closed his senior season 28-9 and his career 100-37.
“It’s awesome,” Roth said. “That’s something that nobody will ever be able to take away from you.
“I remember on my recruiting visit when I was a junior in high school and the All-American plaques were hanging on the wall across the hall from (the coaches) office and I was like, ‘Oh man, it would be cool to have one of those.’
“It’s cool to be a part of that. It’s definitely gratifying to see all that hard work pay off. I played some other sports when I was a kid and when I was in high school. Nothing compared to wrestling, the gratification of winning. It’s a full-time job and to see your hard work pay off, that was important to me.”
Roth was seeded 12th entering the tournament. He finished 5-2 in the three-day event, and his ledger included victories over over the fourth seed and the seventh seed.
“He was seeded 12th so he (started) four spots from even being on the podium,” CMU coach Tom Borrelli said. “He had to wrestle a really good tournament and he had to upset some people he wasn’t supposed to beat and he did that.
“You know all the things that these kids go through, the ups and downs. There’s a lot involved in this sport so you’re just glad that when it’s all over with that they can be happy.”
There were many more ups than downs for Roth in Oklahoma City. He opened with an 11-3 major win over Kevin Devoy of Drexel, then dropped a 10-5 decision to fifth-seeded Tyler Graff of Wisconsin. Graff is scheduled to wrestle for the championship Saturday night against third-seeded Tony Ramos of Iowa.
The loss to Graff dropped Roth into the wrestlbacks. He began the rugged road back with a 15-4 major over Chuck Zeisloft of Rider, setting up a showdown with old nemesis Jonathon Morrison of Oklahoma State.
Both Roth and Morrison are Illinois natives, and Morrison was seeded fourth in the tournament. Roth pulled out a 5-4 victory, his first ever over Morrison. Morrison had defeated Roth, 3-2, on Jan. 1.
“Beating Morrison in the second round of the wrestlebacks was really big,” Borrelli said. “They’re both from the state of Illinois. I don’t know how many times they wrestled each other in high school or in middle school or in youth wrestling, and Joe had never beaten him in his life.”
Roth then faced seventh-seeded Chasé Quiroga of Purdue. The winner would be guaranteed a top-eight finish, and All-America status. Roth emerged with a 5-3 victory, after which he euphorically leaped into Borrelli’s arms.
“Coach Borrelli’s done a heck of a job of just drilling into my mind that you can’t let others’ opinions become your reality,” Roth said. “To me that’s what the rankings are. Once you get out of the regular season, you start back over and everyone’s 0-0. It’s any man’s game.
“I just stuck to my game plan. I did everything right in practice and it carried over to the national tournament.”
A 6-1 loss to sixth-seeded Mason Beckman of Lehigh left Roth in the seventh-place match on Saturday morning. Roth wrestled a near-flawless match against Oklahoma’s Brewer, who was seeded 13th.
The win over Brewer unfolded much as the entire week did for Roth, who said that, in retrospect, he may have wrestled the best tournament of his career.
“As far as not making mistakes and just wrestling well, it was,” he said. “There was a little bit of pressure at the beginning of the tournament, at the beginning of the season, but I’m happy with my performance, this weekend especially. And I feel like I wrestled a really good tournament.
“There’s a couple of matches that I wish I could re-do, but that is what it is now. But overall, I’m happy with my performance.”
Roth is the lone senior among the five Chippewas who qualified for the NCAA Championships. Four of those CMU student-athletes won at least two matches in the tournament.
Roth extended CMU’s streak to 12 of having at least one wrestler earn All-America status.
“I’m proud of that, but you always want more,” Borrelli said. “You think you’re capable of more. The program’s capable of a lot more. This was a tough year for us. It was up and down, we never really had the consistency we wanted. We had some really tough losses dual-meet wise, but we’re moving in the right direction. It’s still going to be a lot of work, but we’re getting to where we want to be.
“We have some young guys in the room who we feel like with some seasoning and some hard work this spring and summer, we think they can really contribute.”
