Weatherman Second, Four Cyclones Place At Midlands

Tuesday, December 29

Evanston, Ill.

All Day

Iowa State

Midlands Championships

Weatherman Second, Four Cyclones Place At Midlands

12.30.2015 | Wrestling

By: cyclones.com

EVANSTON, Ill. – Four Cyclones earned a spot on the podium at the 2015 Ken Kraft Midlands Championships. Tanner Weatherman finished runner-up at 165 pounds, Earl Hall and Lelund Weatherspoon earned seventh-place finishes and Gabe Moreno brought home eighth-place honors at 149-pounds.

As a team, Iowa State (3-2, 1-0 Big 12) finished in sixth-place at the Midlands in their return to the to Welsh-Ryan Arena with 64 team points. Iowa took home the team title with 152 points.

Finals
In order to become Iowa State's 67th Midlands Champion, Weatherman would have to beat Purdue's Chad Welch in the 165-pound finals.

After one period of action, Weatherman trailed Welch by a 2-1 margin. Welch began the second period with an escape and stretched his lead to 3-1. With a front headlock, Welch was able to bring Weatherman's shoulders to the mat. Weatherman finished runner-up at the 2015 Midlands Championships, as Welch pinned him in 3:54.

Session Three
Weatherman wrestled to a 3-0 record on Tuesday, and was pitted against CSU Bakersfields' Brian Fierro in the 165-pound semifinals. Weatherman cruised to the finals. He scored on two takedowns, a two-point near fall, a pair of escapes and notched the riding-time point to take his match by 10-4 decision.

The third session marked the blood round of the Midlands Championships. Earl Hall, Gabe Moreno, Lelund Weatherspoon, Dane Pestano and Quean Smith all wrestled for a shot at the podium.

The Cyclones posted a 3-2 record, with Hall, Moreno and Weatherspoon all earning spots on the medal stand with a win in the blood round. The three would go on to lose their next match, and each would then wrestle for seventh-place.

In the first round of the day, Hall defeated Jacob Colon of Grandview by 8-5 decision. Nebraska's Eric Montoya knocked off Hall in the consolation quarterfinals by 1-0 decision.

For seventh-place, Hall wrestled Lehigh's Mason Beckman, who knocked him out of the 2015 NCAA Championships. In Evanston, it was a different story. Hall rolled on to an 11-3 major-decision to capture seventh-place honors.

Moreno was dominant in his blood round match. He derailed Sam Speno of N.C. State by 15-2 major-decision. In the next round though, it was Iowa's Michael Kemerer who defeated Moreno by 20-7 major-decision.

Moreno wrestled Max Theobald of Rutgers in his medal match. The Scarlet Knight got the better of Moreno in this match-up. He pinned the Urbandale native in 1:12, giving Moreno an eighth-place finish.

With a fall in 5:30 over Northwestern's Mitch Sliga, Lelund Weatehrspoon earned a spot on the podium. Weatherspoon then wrestled Rutgers' Phil Backuckas, falling, 6-3.

The 174-pound seventh-place match took just 18 seconds to find a winner. Weatherspoon came out and put Trace Angeles of Northern Illinois in a front headlock. He then turned him, brought his shoulders to the mat and locked up a seventh-place finish.

Iowa State will return to the mat Jan. 8-9 as they head out to Virginia to take on the field at the Virginia Duals.