Late thoughts on Navy Classic.....
It was a fun day and there isn't a better backdrop for a tourney than the Naval Academy. Here's a few that thoughts on what I saw.
1) Hunter Bolen- First, let me say if a video exists of Hunter's semifinal match against Morgan, watch it immediately. If I have seen a more exciting match, I can't remember when. Morgan won the match TWICE only to have Bolen get the reversal. Kolat was arguing with the refs off mat, well after the end of the match. Hunter kept focused and beat a quality wrestler that is ranked just below him in the polls. The match with Harvey in the finals was a similarly close match against another ranked opponent, I'm eager to see how he does in vegas. I don't think there's a gas tank although his level of aggression is up a notch and often that leads to mistakes, Hunter's well matched for the 184.
2) Gerardi/Hughes; I said before for the match we'd learn a lot about what we had in Gerardi and Hughes in this tourney and unfortunately we did. Hughes had a lot of winnable matches that he couldn't generate enough offense to win. Gerardi just wasn't taking enough risk. Both look like they will struggle to qualify is they continue to wrestle list they did yesterday.
3)DMF: Very focused. A true pro.
4) Borst: He's not the John Borst of last year and looks better than Miller did. He's strong and has not lost a step, so he's fast and strong. The match against Heino was winnable and would have had the tie if the match was two seconds longer. I can't wait to see him against Pitt's Thomas.
5) The Moores. First Mitch generates a lot of non-Hokie hatred, at least from where I was standing (in a scrum of Navy wrestlers). His last match did not look good. Aside from the pin Brent did not look sharp.
6)BCL - There are so many comparisons between him and Sal Mastriani, both in their strengths and weakness. BCL often exposes his back in attacks and scrambles like Sal used to and he got caught,
7) Smeltzer/ Howard; Stan truly separated himself from Cody yesterday. He just wrestles better and stays in control. However, he just didn't prove himself against better guys.
8) Ty Walz: Where was he?
9) Chick and Ruth's: Still there, still awesome.
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Posted: 11/24/2019 at 6:24PM