Wrestling Places Four, Earns Three Automatic Bids at EIWA Championships

Saturday, March 7

Bethlehem, Pa.

All Day

Drexel University

EIWA Championships

Wrestling Places Four, Earns Three Automatic Bids at EIWA Championships

3/7/2020 5:46:00 PM | Wrestling

Results

BETHLEHEM, Pa. – Antonio Mininno, Michael O'Malley and Bryan McLaughlin punched their tickets to the 2020 NCAA Wrestling Championships, and Parker Kropman added a fourth-place finish at 157 pounds on the final day of the EIWA Championships at Stabler Arena on the campus of Lehigh.

The trio are all first-time qualifiers for the NCAA Tournament. O'Malley and McLaughlin made the podium for the first times in their respective careers. Mininno placed eighth at last season's EIWA Championships, and Kropman was a placewinner in 2017 – his freshman season at Binghamton.

Antonio Mininno
Mininno placed seventh at 125 pounds to snag the weight class' final automatic bid. He started Saturday with a loss to second-seeded and third-ranked Brandon Paetzell in the consolation quarterfinals, setting up a dramatic finish in the seventh-place bout.

A late surge in the first period from Hofstra's Dylan Rider put Mininno in a 4-0 hole, but a reversal with 21 seconds remaining halved the deficit. The sophomore from Deptford, N.J. Added an escape in the second to make the score 4-3. Ryder started the final period on bottom and quickly escaped. With only 10 seconds remaining in the bout, it appeared that time had ran out on Mininno, but he saved his season with a match-tying takedown with nine seconds remaining.

For the second time in five matches at EIWAs, Mininno went to overtime with a chance to lock in an automatic qualifier spot. He was denied in the quarterfinals on Friday, but it would not be the case on Saturday. Both the sudden victory and first tiebreaker periods saw no scoring, but Mininno broke open the match in the second tiebreaker. He reversed Ryder halfway through the period then added a pair of back points for a 9-5 decision win, a seventh-place finish and a ticket to Minneapolis.

Parker Kropman
Fates can alter in the matter of seconds in postseason wrestling. Mininno benefited from a swing of the pendulum in the dying seconds of his final match, but Kropman was cast to be the victim. He lost on an escape inside the final five seconds of his third-place bout, missing an opportunity to send the match to overtime and potentially grab one of the three automatic qualifying spots at 157 pounds.

Kropman began Saturday with a loss to top-seeded and second-ranked Quincy Monday of Princeton in the semifinals. He then dropped to the consolation semifinals, where he pulled away from Harvard's Hunter Ladnier in the final minute for the 8-2 decision victory.

That win propelled the redshirt-junior from Rochester, N.Y. into the third-place match, where he and Army's Markus Hartman battled for the EIWA's last allotted spot in the weight class. Kropman drew first blood when he took down second-seeded Hartman with 1:08 to go in the first period, but a quick escape and takedown with 13 seconds to go gave the ninth-ranked Black Knight a 3-2 edge. Hartman tacked on an escape point in the second and led 4-2 after five minutes.

Starting the third from a standing position, Kropman finished a single-leg takedown with 36 seconds left in regulation to tie the match at 4-4. With under 10 seconds to go, Kropman found himself latched on to Hartman's ankle, working desperately to prevent the escape and send the bout to overtime, but Hartman's ankle, the chance at overtime and a potential automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament slipped from his grasp with only three seconds remaining.

Michael O'Malley
O'Malley pushed top-seeded and No. 1-ranked Jordan Kutler in the semifinals of the 174-pound bracket but eventually lost by way of 4-0 decision. O'Malley and Kutler battled to scoreless draw in the first, but three points in the second on an escape and takedown and the ride time advantage decided the bout.

The redshirt-freshman from Hasbrouck Heights, N.J. then dropped another tight 6-1 decision in the third-place bout, this one to third-seeded and 11^th-ranked Ben Harvey of Army.

Bryan McLaughlin
McLaughlin moved past fourth-seeded Jake Koser of Navy in the consolation quarterfinals in his first match of the day to secure a top-six finish and an automatic bid to the tournament. He then lost, 11-0, to sixth-seeded J.T. Brown of Army in the consolation semifinals and suffered a 10-2 major decision loss to third-seeded John Jakobsen of Lehigh in the fifth-place bout.

Hosts Lehigh won the team title with 154 points, finishing ahead of Cornell (120), Army (112), Navy (104.5) and Princeton (100.5). The Dragons finished in a tie for 12^th with 47.5 points.

Kropman and Ebed Jarrell wait until March 10 to see if they receive an at-large bid. The official NCAA selection show is scheduled for 6 p.m. on March 11 and will be shown live on ncaa.com.

Antonio Mininno – 125 (7^th Place, Automatic Qualifier)
Rd. of 16: (14) Antonio Mininno (Drexel) pin (3) #5 Michael Colaiocco (Penn), 4:22
QFs: (11) Dominic LaJoie (Cornell) dec. (14) Antonio Mininno (Drexel), 4-3 (TB-2)
Cons. Rd. of 8 #2: (14) Antonio Mininno (Drexel) dec. (16) Tommaso Frezza (Binghamton), 5-3
Cons. QFs: (2) #3 Brandon Paetzell (Lehigh) pin (14) Antonio Mininno (Drexel), 2:39
7^th/8^th: (14) Antonio Mininno def. (9) #18 Dylan Ryder (Hofstra), 9-5 (TB-2)

Parker Kropman – 157 (4^th Place)
Rd. of 16: (4) #30 Parker Kropman (Drexel) dec. (13) Dominick Demarco (LIU), 4-0
QFs: (4) #30 Parker Kropman (Drexel) pin (12) Adam Santoro (Cornell), 6:17
SFs: (1) #2 Quincy Monday (Princeton) major dec. (4) #30 Parker Kropman (Drexel), 12-2
Cons. SFs: (4) #30 Parker Kropman (Drexel) dec. (6) #28 Hunter Ladnier (Harvard), 8-2
3^rd/4^th: (2) #9 Markus Hartman (Army) dec. (4) #30 Parker Kropman (Drexel), 5-4

Michael O'Malley – 174 (4^th Place, Automatic Qualifier)
Rd. of 16: (5) #27 Michael O'Malley (Drexel) dec. (12) Neil Antrassian (Penn), 4-2
QFs: (5) #27 Michael O'Malley (Drexel) dec. (4) #16 Brandon Womack (Cornell), 5-3
SFs: (1) #1 Jordan Kutler (Lehigh) dec. (5) #27 Michael O'Malley (Drexel), 4-0
Cons. SFs: (5) #27 Michael O'Malley (Drexel) dec. (6) #29 Sage Heller (Hofstra), 6-4
3^rd/4^th: (3) #11 Ben Harvey (Army) dec. (5) #27 Michael O'Malley (Drexel), 6-1

Bryan McLaughlin – 197 (6^th Place, Automatic Qualifier)
Rd. of 16: (8) Bryan McLaughlin (Drexel) pin (9) Trey Rogers (Hofstra), 3:59
QFs: (1) #3 Patrick Brucki (Princeton) major dec. (8) Bryan McLaughlin (Drexel), 16-3
Cons. Rd. of 8 #2: (8) Bryan McLaughlin (Drexel) dec. (11) Nino Bastianelli (Brown), 4-2
Cons. QFs: (8) Bryan McLaughlin (Drexel) dec. (4) #24 Jake Koser (Navy), 5-4
Cons. SFs: (6) #21 J.T. Brown (Army) major dec. (8) Bryan McLaughlin (Drexel), 11-0
5^th/6^th: (3) #20 John Jakobsen (Lehigh) major dec. (8) Bryan McLaughlin (Drexel), 10-2
Tournament seeding in parenthesis. National rankings in italics

Team Standings
1. Lehigh – 155
2. Cornell – 120
3. Army – 112
4. Navy – 104.5
5. Princeton – 100.5
6. Binghamton – 67.5
7. Bucknell – 57.5
8. Penn – 56
9. American – 55
10. Hofstra – 49.5
11. Columbia – 48.5
T12. Drexel – 47.5
T12. Harvard – 47.5
14. Brown – 13.5
15. LIU – 9.5
16. Franklin & Marshall – 6
17. Sacred Heart – 5.5