ST. LOUIS- Five Greyhound wrestlers placed at Maryville's Kaufman Brand Open Saturday, led by redshirt senior
Brody Conner's third place finish in the Elite 184 bracket and sophomore
Blaze Lowery's third place finish in the Amateur 157 bracket.
In addition to Conner and Lowery,
Matt McKinney, #10
Kyle Barkovich and
Jack Eiteljorge all placed in their respective weight classes.
Conner opened his 2019-20 season with a 6-1 day, rattling off the six wins after an opening round loss. After a pair of falls and a decision over Illinois' Nikita Nepomnyashchiy, Conner took a 7-1 win over McKendree's Dan Fillipek. After taking a medical forfeit to put him in third place bout, Conner finished out his day with a 7-4 win over Sergio Villalobos of Southern Illinois-Edwardsville to take third.
Lowery (4-1) opened his tournament with a bang, pinning Illinois' Jacob Reicin in 56 seconds. After two more wins, Lowery found himself in the semifinals where he suffered his first loss of the day, 9-3, at the hands of Findlay's Chase Moore. After a no contest match pushed him to the third place bout, Lowery took third via a 7-2 win over Christopher Viehmann of Maryville.
Both McKinney and Barkovich came away with fourth place finishes. McKinney went 2-2 through the Elite 141 bracket, opening his season with a pin in 4:34 over Keshawn Laws (Cumberland). After a narrow semifinal loss to Purdue's Alec White 4-3, McKinney pinned again in the conso semis. He fell to Drury's Peter Kuster 6-5 to finish fourth.
Barko came away with a 15-4 major decision in his first match of the season, and followed with a 17-0 tech fall over Maryville's Michael Peters in the quarterfinals. #7 Matt Rose topped Barkovich in the bracket semifinal, 7-3, but the Lawton, Mich., native bounced back with a a win in the conso semis to take a spot in the third/fourth match. Barko dropped a 3-1 decision in SV-1 to Jonathan Ball of Fort Hays State.
Eiteljorge took a sixth place finish in the Elite 165 bracket, going 3-1 on the day before med forfeiting to sixth.
UIndy's unattached participants featured seven placers, including bracket championships from
Breyden Bailey (Elite 141) and
Derek Blubaugh (Amateur 174).
Sammy Fair (Amateur 149) and
PJ Sterrett (Amateur 184) both took runner up finishes, while
Gavin Ritter (Amateur 133) and
Chase Wilkerson (Amateur 141) finished third.
Nick Varanelli (Amateur 141) rounded out the unattached placers with a sixth-place finish.
The Greyhounds are in open action again next Saturday, heading East to the Findlay Open.
