For the second straight season, Wisconsin’s Isaac Jordan claimed the Big Ten Championship at 165 pounds.
Jordan clinched his place atop the podium with a 3-1 win over Ohio State’s Bo Jordan in the 165 pound title match on Day 2 of the Big Ten Championships at Carver Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City on Sunday.
Sunday’s match was a rematch of last year’s championship tilt.
The two cousins were scoreless after the opening period, but Bo got on the board with an escape late in the second to take a 1-0 lead.
With 1:29 of ride time to his credit, Isaac chose neutral to begin the final frame. He scored a takedown with six seconds remaining to win the match 3-1.
The victory pushed Isaac to 25-0 on the season.
Bo suffered just the third loss of his career. All three have come at the hands of Isaac, two of them in Big Ten Championship matches.
Isaac is set to make his third appearance at the NCAA Tournament. He garnered All-American honors in both of his previous appearances, taking seventh at 165 a year ago and seventh at 157 in 2014.
In addition to Jordan, four other Badgers earned automatic bids to the NCAAs.
Johnny Jimenez (125 pounds), Ryan Taylor (133), Ricky Robertson (174) and Ryan Christensen (184) also punched their tickets to the national tournament March 17-19 in New Your City.
Taylor finished third at 133. He topped Penn State’s Jordan Conaway 5-4 in the third place match on Sunday.
The redshirt junior’s only loss came to Iowa Cory Clark in a semifinal match on Saturday night by a count of 10-7. Clark went on to win the championship.
Taylor will be making his third trip to the national tournament. He is a two-time All-American who took third two seasons ago, while finishing seventh last year.
Jimenez, Christensen and Brock Horwath each placed seventh at their respective weights.
Jimenez topped Sean McCabe of Rutgers by major decision, 11-3, in his seventh place match giving him the Big Ten’s final automatic bid to the NCAAs at 125.
Christensen bested Ohio State’s Kenny Courts 10-4 for the final automatic bid at 174.
Robertson, who placed eighth at 174, earned his second NCAA Tournament berth. He was pinned by Phil Bakuckas of Rutgers in the seventh place match to finish the tournament with a record of 2-3.
TJ Ruschell put himself in a position to advance to nationals, but fell just short. Ruschell was upended by Nebraska’s Tyler Berger 12-5 in the seventh place match at 157 pounds. The winner of the match earned the Big Ten’s final qualifying spot at that weight.
Horwath finished seventh at 285, winning his seventh place match against Sam Stoll of Iowa by medical forfeit.
Originally, a seventh place showing would have been good enough for Horwath to earn an automatic bid to the NCAAs. However, the Big Ten awarded Maryland’s Dawson Peck with one of the automatic bids despite the fact he was unable to compete at the conference tournament. Peck earned the allocation based upon his regular season performance. This left the Big Ten with only six automatic bids to dish out last weekend.
Both Horwath and Andrew Crone (149) are candidates for an at-large bid at their respective weights. There are six tournament spots remaining at each weight class.
The NCAA Tournament field will be set Wednesday when the recipients of the 49 at-large bids are announced.
Final Team Scores:
- Penn State 150.52
- Iowa 127.03
- Ohio State 126.04
- Nebraska 117.05
- Rutgers 106.56
- Michigan 89.5
- Illinois 88.0
- Wisconsin 67.5
- Minnesota 51.5
- Purdue 34.0
- Indiana 30.5
- Northwestern 11.5
- Michigan State 10.5
- Maryland 7.5
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