Mendez Wins Championship At Cliff Keen Invitational, Buckeyes Finish In Third Place

On the second day of the Cliff Keen Invitational, the Buckeyes finished in third place, with Jesse Mendez taking bringing home a championship at the 141-pound division.

As a team, Ohio State finished with 125.5 points behind only Iowa State and Nebraska.

Three wrestlers made it to the semifinals for Ohio State, but Mendez was the only to make it out of the first match on Saturday. Here’s a look at how each weight class that was on the mat did for the Buckeyes on the final day of the event:

133 pounds: Nic Bouzakis was the only Ohio State wrestler to drop his first-round match, moving to the consolation bracket immediately on Friday. He won four straight after the loss so that he still had a chance at third place.

That continued into the final day. He won his first bout by pin in just 1:26, and the next match took 3:39 but he forced another fall to advance again. In the third-place bout he won a close match 4-2 by decision to finish in third place after losing his first match.

141 pounds: No. 5 Mendez had a tough road ahead of him in the semifinals, facing No. 4 Brock Hardy, a Big Ten opponent from Nebraska. It would be the first match in the tournament he didn’t win by fall or tech fall, but he still got the major decision win 11-3 to move on to the finals.

There were no points awarded in the first period of the match. Mendez started up in the second period, and No. 7 Ryan Jack escaped to score the only point of the match and lead 1-0 into the third period. Mendez escaped 10 seconds into the third and had a takedown to give him a lead he wouldn’t relinquish, winning the championship 5-2.

149 pounds: Dylan D’Emilio wrestled his way to the semifinals on Friday, but fell in his first match 11-0 to Ridge Lovett, the No. 1 wrestler at 149 pounds according to InterMat who would go on to win the tournament.

In his first consolation match, D’Emilio won 13-10. He finished in fourth place, falling in the third-place bout to No. 3 Kyle Parco 11-1.

157 pounds: At 157 pounds, Gallagher dropped his first match of the day to No. 5 Bryce Andonian from Virginia Tech 8-2, putting him in the seventh-place bout. There he would win 9-5 to secure the seventh-place finish

174 pounds: Carson Kharchla was the third Buckeye to advance to the semifinals in the championship bracket on Friday, but like D’Emilio, he lost his first match of Saturday 11-8 to No. 7 Cade DeVos of South Dakota State.

He bounced back after that, winning 11-8 to move to the third-place match where he would take home a 10-3 victory.

Heavyweight: Nick Feldman took down his first opponent of the day 14-3 but dropped his next match 17-4 to secure a spot in the fifth-place bout. He medically forfeited the match to finish in sixth place for the tournament at heavyweight.