No. 6 Grand Canyon beat Limestone 33-7 in the first round and fell 30-9 to No. 3 Central Oklahoma in the quarterfinals of the NWCA National Duals at Springfield, IL Saturday.
The Antelopes (6-4) dropped their consolation round match to No. 20 Kutztown 26-19.
"We have to get all 10 guys on the same page," said GCU coach R.C. LaHaye. "We had five guys wrestle pretty tough and five not wrestle as tough.
"The good news is it's not March yet. We'll get it done."
GCU won eight of the 10 matches, including two by fall, against Limestone.
“The guys wrestled hard and won a lot of the close matches,” added LaHaye on the Limestone win.
GCU won the first three matches against Limestone, getting wins from
Kyle McCrite (125),
Lino Estrada (133) and
Mike Hamel (141). Hamel won by major decision, 12-0, over Terrence Dugay. McCrite earned an 11-4 triumph over Eric Rholetter, while Estrada won one of the closest matches of the morning, 6-4, over Ross Benzel.
The Antelopes won four straight from 157 to 184.
Martin Fabbian edged Demetre Ligouri at 174, 3-2, while
Juan Carlos Maynes picked up one of the team’s two wins by fall. He pinned Max Redfoot at 165 in 6:00.
Ryan Miller, at 157, and
Brett Sanchez, at 184, each won 8-0 major decisions.
Miller started the four-match winning streak by defeating Austin Koile. Sanchez extended Grand Canyon’s lead to 27-4 with a win over Blake Steiert.
To wrap up the opening round win,
Tyrell Fortune improved to 21-1 with a pin in 3;44 over Aaron Rowe.
Against third-ranked UCO, McCrite opened with a 10-6 win over Ryan Brooks. UCO won the next six matches before Sanchez picked up a 4-2 win over two-time All-American Tanner Keck. Fortune was a 20-8 victor over Cody Dauphin.
In the consolation round match with Kutztown, each team won five matches, but Kutztown picked up more bonus points with a forfeit, two pins and a technical fall.
The Antelopes suffered the toughest loss of the match at 174.
Justin Martin lost 5-3 in sudden-victory to Wade Rivera. McCrite, Miller, Maynes, Sanchez and Fortune all had victories. Fortune picked up another pin, in 2:44 over Ziad Haddad. McCrite was a 17-3 victor over Nick Lamoreaux. The other three wins came in close decisions.
Miller downed Matt Martoccio 8-5. Maynes was a 2-0 winner over Ricky Pena and Sanchez picked up his third win of the day with an 8-4 win over Giovanni Ortiz.
Fortune and McCrite joined Sanchez with 3-0 records on the day.
GCU 33, Limestone 7
UCO 30, GCU 9
Kutztown 26, GCU 19