WICHITA, Kan. – Hagen Heistand and Creighton Baughman headlined day one of the NAIA Wrestling Championships for the Bulldogs on Thursday (March 6). Concordia University, Nebraska brought eight wrestlers to the championships that saw 280 athletes take the mats at Park City Arena. Head Coach Josh Watts’ squad ends the first two sessions with 11.5 team points and sits in 18th place.
“We battled hard and the guys competed well,” Coach Watts said. “We have three alive for All-American status tomorrow. Hopefully, we can get that done. We had some smart wrestling and were executing game plans well. There was a lot of communication between the coaching staff and our guys before the matches. What we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it. We came away with some big wins. Hagen upset Darnai Heard in the second round, who I think was ranked No. 1 pretty much all year. Creighton had a big win and Mason is fighting his way back.”
Surging to the quarterfinals, No. 11 Heistand had an uphill battle after match one, as the opposing wrestler was No. 6 Darnai Heard (Grand View) and was previously ranked at the top of the 149 lb. class. Down 1-0 going into the final period, Heistand’s confidence led to an escape and a takedown with 1:16 left in the match, winning by a narrow decision (4-2). In round one, the Dow City, Iowa, native defeated Kyler Adams (Midway) by major decision (12-4).
Said Heistand, “I was ready to go and have some fun and just let it fly. My mindset was that if I wrestled my best and held my position, then nobody could take me down. I felt him let up a little bit and I let it go to push for the winning takedown.”
With seemingly one goal in mind, No. 6 Baughman gave up only three points in the two matches moving on by major decisions in both bouts. The fifth year, Baughman, outclassed Nick Moore (Campbellsville) via 8-0 and No. 11 Adam Stanley (Embry-Riddle) with a 11-3 finish. Zero upsets happened in the first two rounds at 141, but Baughman will have an opportunity to be one of the first in tomorrow's match versus No. 3 Evan Potter (Southern Oregon).
Unranked heavyweight Mason Garcia had to go to extra time in his opening match versus No. 12 Ethan DeRoche (Providence) to decide the clash but fell in a late decision, 3-2. Garcia, out of Arroyo Grande, Calif., responded with back to back victories over Amad Soufi (Missouri Baptist) by decision, 4-2, and Emmett Bivens (Wayland Baptist) via major (10-2).
After taking a loss in his first match, Steven Barnes at 149, defeated David Pierson (St. Thomas) by fall (3:41) and set himself up with his own match against Heard. Down 7-1 in the second period, Barnes seemingly rose from the dead with a take down and near fall sprinting into the lead (8-7). In the final two minutes, the two wrestlers stopped holding back and swapped takedowns as Heard seized the match win with less than 30 seconds to go.
At 184, Barrett Brandt fell in a close one (6-3) to No. 12 Brice Parks (Campbellsville) and to No. 6 Kyle Knudtson (Eastern Oregon). Hunter Weimer drew No. 2 William Speight (Lourdes) and No. 16 Temuujijn Mendbileg (Dakota Wesleyan) getting dropped 19-3 and 7-2, respectively. At 157, Cole Price fell to No. 3 David Rubio (Corban), 18-4, and No. 14 Justin Windauer (Montana State - Northern) by fall (4:06).
Concordia will take on day two of the NAIA National Championships starting at 11 a.m. CT in the Park City Arena on Friday.