Wrestlers Second After Day 1 At MAC Championships

Friday, March 4

Athens, Ohio

12 p.m.

Central Michigan University

MAC Championships

Photo by: Hayley Steffy

3/4/2022 9:19:00 PM | Wrestling

Photo Gallery

By: Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com

ATHENS, Ohio – Not the way the Central Michigan wrestling team would have drawn it up or had hoped it would go.

Two Chippewas, Johnny Lovett (157 pounds) and Matt Stencel (285), will wrestle in the title match in their respective weight classes on Saturday at the Mid-American Conference Championships at Ohio's Convocation Center.

Those two, both seeded No. 1, held serve in advancing to the finals. But the same cannot be said two other Chippewas who dropped matches early in the tournament.

CMU finished Friday with 73.5 points. Lock Haven leads the tournament with 94, while Northern Illinois (67.5) is third.

Lock Haven is still alive in nine of the 10 weight classes and a Bald Eagle is in the finals in four of those weight classes. CMU is alive in eight weight classes and has the two finalists.

The Chippewas and Lock Haven will go head-to-head in two of those finals with Lovett taking on third-seeded Ben Barton, and Stencel going up against Isaac Reid, the No. 2 seed.

CMU won the MAC West with a 7-0 league dual record; Lock Haven went 6-1 to win the East. Lock Haven's loss came early in the schedule to Buffalo.

"We've got a long ways to go," CMU coach Tom Borrelli said. "We've got to win this thing in the wrestlebacks, if we can. It might not be mathematically possible, but we're going to fight as much as we can and see if we can pull it out. Hopefully it comes down to the heavyweight match. We feel good about that."

The big upsets for CMU came at 141 and 125; at 141, top-seed Dresden Simon, who is ranked 12^th nationally and was seeking his third consecutive MAC title, went 1-2 on Friday and was eliminated from the tournament; at 125, CMU's Brock Bergelin, the No. 2 seed, dropped his opening bout and is one of six Chippewas in the consolation bracket.

"We didn't wrestle great today," Borrelli said. "We just weren't ourselves today. It just goes to show you that our league's pretty even. Without Missouri in our league there's no great team. It's a dogfight and you've got to be ready, and I don't know if we were quite ready today."

CMU's Vince Perez (133), Corbyn Munson (149), Tracy Hubbard (165), Bret Fedewa (174) and Aaron Bolo (197) are still alive in the consolation bracket. The best they can finish is third place.

Stencel, who is ranked eighth nationally, will go for his record fifth MAC title after pinning both of his opponents on Friday. He pinned Buffalo's Tobin Cahill in 2:37 and then pinned Tyler Bagoly of Clarion in 4:01.

Lovett, who is ranked 17^th, posted an 11-3 major-decision victory over Cole McComas of Rider and then posted a tough 2-1 win over Michael Petite of Buffalo to reach the final.