The opening day of competition at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational was pretty keen to the Wisconsin wrestling team. Entering the match ranked No. 15, Wisconsin finished in fifth place with 54 total team points. Six wrestlers put on the moves for the Badgers and qualified for the quarterfinals.
Junior Tom Clum, senior Tyler Laudon, freshmen Craig Henning, sophomore Tyler Turner and juniors Kelly and Ryan Flaherty all came out on top in their opening matches advancing through the 32-wrestler first round, but each then fell in their following quarterfinal match-ups.
\As a team we wrestled pretty well today, and as the day went on the competition kept on getting tougher and tougher,"" said Assistant Head Coach Bart Chelesvig. ""We just need to come back aggressive tomorrow and win the close matches.""
Weighing in at 133 pounds, Clum went 2-1 in the opening day. His wins came via a technical fall and decision victory before he was defeated in a close 6-5 decision in his third match. Laudon also won his first two matches, his first coming on a 3-2 overtime victory.
Henning and Turner followed suit and also went 2-1 on the day. As if to draw out the similarity each wrestler won their first two matches and then fell in their quarterfinal matches.
The Flaherty boys, who happen to be identical twin brothers and junior tri-captains, both made their way into the quarterfinals. Ryan Flaherty, however, may have had the most successful day as he won three matches and earned two pins and technical fall victory.
The final day of competition in invitation was, well, a little less keen to the overall finish of the Badger team. The Badgers slipped from their fifth place standing they had earned the day before but still managed to finish ninth. For four Badger wrestlers, however, it worked out just fine. The combination of Henning, freshman Jake Donar, Turner and Ryan Flaherty all placed on the last day and led Wisconsin to a ninth-place finish at the meet.
UW scored 65.5 points overall to place in the top-10 team rankings, while Michigan finished first with 148 points. Rival Big Ten opponent Purdue also managed a top-10 finish with a score of 83.5.
""Overall, I think we wrestled pretty well this weekend. I think there's always room for improvement so we can take this and definitely learn from it,"" said Assistant Head Coach Bart Chelesvig.
Henning, who wrestles at 149 pounds, earned seventh place when he defeated Purdue's Doug Withstandley, 7-1. Henning's record on the weekend was 4-2 earning a pin, a technical fall and major decision victories.
Henning's drill partner and the team's tri-captain, Turner, nabbed seventh-place in his 157-pound weight class defeating Virginia's Paul Bjorlo 6-2. Turner's overall meet record was similar to Henning's, going 4-2, but Turner had four wins by decision.
Donar, who started off the Invite on a somber note made his way back into the meat of the competition and earned a seventh-place finish in the 165 bracket. In his second day, Donar went 4-1 and defeated opponents from Hofstra and Brown Universities. Overall Donar's weekend was one of the best. He went 6-2 with four decision victories.
The final top-10 finisher for UW was Flaherty, who won fifth-place in the 197-pound weight class by defeating Penn's Marcus Schontube 7-4. Flaherty went 6-2 on the weekend with three pins, two decisions and a technical fall victory. The Badgers resume competition Dec. 11, in Chattanooga, Tenn. against Tennessee and Kent State University.
-uwbadgers.com contributed to this report
