Buckeye Wrestler Kirk Nail Earns All-America Honors at NCAA Championships – Ohio State Buckeyes
3/17/2006 12:00:00 AM | General, Wrestling
March 17, 2006
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio State wrestler Kirk Nail solidified himself as an All-American after advancing to the seventh-place heavyweight bout Friday at the 2006 NCAA Wrestling Championships at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City. The event, hosted by the University of Oklahoma and the Oklahoma All Sports Association award the Top 8 finishers in each weight class as All-Americans. Nail will face seventh-seed Jake Hager of Oklahoma at 10 a.m. CST Saturday and will participate in the Parade of All-Americans at 6 p.m. CST.
Nail (So., Hilliard, Ohio/Davidson), who is a two-time NCAA championship qualifier at heavyweight, opened day two of the tournament with an 8-1 loss in the quarterfinals to fourth-seed Cain Valasquez of Arizona State, but rebounded with a 4-2 victory in the first tiebreaker over 11th-seed Spencer Nadolsky of North Carolina. After advancing to meet eighth-seed Michael Faust of Virginia Tech for the second time this season, Nail dropped a tight 3-1 decision in sudden victory. On the first day of the championships, Nail reeled off consecutive upsets of seeded wrestlers to advance to the quarterfinals. Nail entered his first round bout against 12th-seed Adam LoPiccolo of American and defeated LoPiccolo with a 6-4 sudden victory win. In the next session, Nail matched up against fifth-seed Bode Ogunwole of Harvard and scored a 4-3 win.
Teammates Blake Maurer (So., Evansville, Ind./Mater Dei) and Reece Humphrey (Indianapolis, Ind./Lawrence North) were eliminated from the championships Thursday after losing two matches each. Maurer began the meet with a 13-4 loss to seventh-seed Kenneth Cook of UC Davis. In the third meeting between Big Ten wrestlers Maurer and Gabriel Dretsch of Minnesota, it appeared Maurer secured a 2-1 victory against the 10th-seeded Dretsch to stay in contention for a third place finish at 174 pounds, but the match came under protest after Dretsch was called for a technical violation that gave Maurer his second match point. After review, Maurer and Dretsch repeated the third period and the score was revised to 1-0 in favor of the Golden Gopher. It was in the final period Dretsch took control, scoring five points to win by a final 6-1 tally.
As a true freshman, Humphrey was eliminated from competition at 133 pounds after dropping bouts in the first round and the first wrestleback. Humphrey lost, 8-2, to Joshua Pniewski of Gardner-Webb before suffering a 7-3 defeat to Mark Budd of Buffalo.
For complete results of the 2006 wrestling championships, log on to ncaasports.com.
