Fifth-Ranked Grand Canyon Adds Three More Dual Victories Saturday

Saturday, January 7

Phoenix, AZ

3 p.m.

Grand Canyon

California Baptist

GCU's Brett Sanchez returned to the lineup with a dominating win, 17-0, over CBU's Ken Tribble to lead the 'Lopes to a 22-21 win.

Fifth-Ranked Grand Canyon Adds Three More Dual Victories Saturday

1/7/2012 10:58:00 PM | Wrestling

An active eight days of wrestling ended with three more victories for the fifth-ranked Grand Canyon University Antelopes.

GCU won three matches at Antelope Gym Saturday, running its streak of consecutive dual wins to six and upping the season record to 8-3. It also wrapped up a stretch of nine dual meets in eight days, five against teams ranked in the Top 25 in one of the two NCAA Division II polls and another against the top-ranked team in the National Collegiate Wrestling Association.

“Our guys are banged up and sick right now and I’m proud of how they wrestled during this rough stretch,” said GCU head coach R.C. LaHaye. “We’ll re-group and starting working on making a run for the regionals.”

Saturday’s three wins didn’t come without drama. Two came by just one point. GCU opened with a 22-21 victory over California Baptist, No. 1 in the NCWA poll. After a 32-6 win over Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference foe Colorado State University-Pueblo (No. 22 in the Basford team rankings), GCU grabbed another one-pointer, 19-18 over Western State, another RMAC foe and the alma mater of LaHaye and assistant coach Larry Wilbanks. It was the program’s third straight win over Western.

It took a criteria point to get the win against the Lancers.

When GCU’s Lino Estrada beat Alex Anunciation 4-3 in the 133 contest, the last of the match, it tied the score 21-21. The third criteria, total match points, gave the victory to GCU. Both teams had five wins – the first criteria -- and each had two by fall (including technical falls). Grand Canyon outscored CBU 64-50 in total points.

One of the big wins to get the total points up was at 184. Brett Sanchez returned to the lineup with an impressive technical fall win, 17-0 over Ken Tribble. Celic Bell (197), Bobby Ward (149) and Victor Carazo (174) also had wins. Bell won by fall in 4:50 over David Dill. Ward scored five points in overtime to take a 7-2 win over Dylan Cataline. Carazo cruised to an 11-2 victory over C.J. Knowland.

Ward and Carazo were 3-0 on the day.

Against Western, Grand Canyon clinched the win when Kyle McCrite defeated Dustin Stiegemeyer 4-2 at 125, the ninth of 10 matches. It gave GCU a 19-12 lead with one match to go. Estrada defaulted the final match at 133.

GCU got in position to close with McCrite when heavyweight Jordan Johnson defeated Western’s Kyle Graulus by disqualification. Johnson appeared to have won by a 6-3 decision, but Graulus was issued a flagrant unsportsmanlike penalty. Instead of a decision victory tying the match at 13-13, GCU picked up six points on the DQ, plus the Mountaineers were penalized one team point.

Backup Austen Moore had a 7-3 win earlier at 157 over Brandon Montoya. He came off the bench to go 2-0 on the day, earning the praise of LaHaye. “Those two wins were huge for us,” said LaHaye.

GCU took the momentum from the win over Cal Baptist to take eight of 10 matches against CSU-Pueblo. At 141, Daniel Nelsongot the ’Lopes off to a great start. He had the quickest win of the day, pinning Marc Fisher in only 58 seconds.

Grand Canyon is off until the Mile High Duals in Prescott, Ariz. Friday. GCU will wrestle Menlo at 3 p.m. and Montana State-Northern at 4:30 p.m.

GCU 22, CBU 21
GCU 32, CSUP 6
GCU 19, WSC 18