Wisconsin finishes in ninth at Big Ten Championships

Sunday, March 8

Piscataway, NJ

Wisconsin Badgers

Big Ten Championships

Wisconsin finishes in ninth at Big Ten Championships

March 08, 2020 | Wrestling

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Seth Gross leads the way, finishing in third place

PISCATAWAY, N.J. – The Wisconsin wrestling team wrapped up its appearance at the Big Ten Tournament on Sunday evening. Wisconsin took home ninth place, scoring 62.5 points total.

Despite not getting the team result the wanted, Wisconsin had four wrestlers wrestle above their seeding. Tristan Moran, an original fifth seed took fourth at 141 pounds. Garrett Model was outstanding for Wisconsin, coming in as a 12^th seed and finishing in 8^th. The eleventh seed Jared Krattiger came out ahead placing ninth in the tournament. Johnny Sebastian started as the 9^th seed and came out in 7^th place.

At 133, No. 1 Seth Gross finished in third place for the Badgers. In his first ever Big Ten tournament, Gross found himself in the third place match against Iowa's Austin DeSanto. With the series tied between them at one win each, Gross got the advantage with a 6-3 decision.

Tristan Moran wrestled at 141 pounds for the Badgers, Moran's day started with a win by medical forfeit over Minnesota's Mitch McKee to advance to the third-place match. Moran's tournament ended with Nebraska's Chad Red Jr. getting the major decision. Moran took fourth in the tournament, improving on his sixth-place result from last season.

In the heavyweight bracket, Trent Hillger took fourth place. After getting a 2-0 victory over Ohio State's Gary Traub, Hillger advanced to the third-place match. He faced off against Iowa's Tony Cassioppi but lost the 4-0 decision, to take fourth.

Garrett Model took eighth place in the 157-pound bracket. Model exceeded expectations after his showing yesterday. After losing to Rutgers' Michael VanBrill by fall, Model was on the podium in eighth place.

In the 174 pound bracket, Jared Krattiger finished in tenth place after stealing a 2-1 decision from Rutgers' Willie Scott. Krattiger's tournament ended with a 4-1 decision over Maryland's Philip Spadafora to take ninth place.

Straight from the mat
"The main goal was to get as many guys qualified for nationals. We have five guys going with the hopes of maybe two more wildcards. It's hard to compete without one of your best guys in Evan Wick. It was an emotional weekend for us, missing him. He's ready to go. He should be ready to compete at the NCAA tournament if they somehow award us a bid. I'm proud of the guys. We took some heartbreaking losses but the ups and downs of the Big Ten tournament is tough. We will go back and get ready for the NCAA tournament and hope that we can do some damage when we get there.
- Head coach, Chris Bono

"This was a great pre-cursor to the national tournament It really is a mini-national tournament. We definitely simulated the national tournament. It was great for our young guys who didn't make the tournament because now they're hungry and know what they need to do. We're ready to go."

Head coach, Chris Bono

"Taking third is obviously not my favorite thing in the world but it's all just awesome competing against guys like this. We have six, seven, eight, nine guys in the Big Ten alone in the top 10. It's fun to come out here and to be able to do something, and that's why I do it – to go out and compete and have fun. It was a great tournament. I obviously didn't want to end in third place but everybody loses at some point in their career and its how you respond. That's the plan – how to get better for the next two weeks.
- Redshirt senior, Seth Gross

"It's mental things, getting sharper on things, wrestling a full seven minutes. If I can put together seven minutes of my best wrestling, I know I can beat anybody in the country, anybody in the world. I have to figure out how I'm going to be able to wrestle for a full seven minutes."
- Redshirt senior, Seth Gross

Notes

Trent Hillger remained undefeated against Ohio State's Gary Traub.
Wisconsin won 6 matches in a row to start the day
Garrett Model, who did not place last season at Big Tens, finished the tournament in 8^th place this season.
Wisconsin started the day with six straight wins

Results
9^th place, 62.5 points

125
#9 Eric Barnett (UW) over #3 Patrick McKee (MINN) by medical forfeit
#8 Nic Aguilar (RU) over #9 Eric Barnett (UW) by dec. 7-5

133
#1 Seth Gross (UW) over #7 Sammy Alvarez (RU) by dec. 9-6
#1 Seth Gross (UW) over #3 Austin DeSanto (IOWA) by dec. 6-3

141
#5 Tristan Moran (UW) over #6 Mitch McKee (MINN) by medical forfeit
#4 Chad Red Jr. (NEB) over #5 Tristan Moran (UW) by Maj. dec. 12-3

149
#12 Alex Hrisopoulos (MSU) over #6 Cole Martin (UW) by fall, 2:41

157
#9 Michael VanBrill (RU) over #12 Garrett Model (UW) by fall, 2:23

174
#10 Jared Krattiger (UW) over #11 Willie Scott (RU) by dec. 2-1
#10 Jared Krattiger (UW) over #9 Philip Spadafora (MARY) by dec. 4-1

184
#9 Johnny Sebastian (UW) over #10 Jelani Embree (MICH) by medical forfeit

285
#4 Trent Hillger (UW) over #6 Gary Traub (OSU) by dec. 2-0
#3 Tony Cassioppi (IOWA) over #4 Trent Hillger by dec. 4-0

Final places
3^rd – Seth Gross
4^th – Tristan Moran
4^th – Trent Hillger
7^th – Johnny Sebastian
8^th – Cole Martin
8^th – Garrett Model
9^th – Jared Krattiger
10^th – Eric Barnett

Up next: The Badgers will held to Minneapolis for the NCAA Tournament. Seth Gross, Tristan Moran, Cole Martin, Johnny Sebastian and Trent Hillger all automatically qualified for the national tournament starting on March 19th. The selection show airs on NCAA.com Wednesday, March 11^th at 6pm CT.