The ILLINI Midlands Preview

That's right. The ILLINI Wrestling Blog & Forum & Beyond Plus will be a Corporate Sponsor of the 59th Annual Ken Kraft Midlands Tournament

WHAT:  The 59th Annual Ken Kraft Midlands Tournament

WHERE:  NOW Arena, Hoffman Estates, ILLINOIS

WHEN:  Friday, December 29 at 9:30 am (Central)

WHEN2:  Saturday, December 30 at 11:00 am (Central)

WHO:  48 Teams including ILLINOIS, 8 B1G Teams; Women's Tourney

TV/STREAMING:  BTN+ (subscription streaming service)

BOUT BOARD:  Trackwrestling

TICKETS:  Ticketmaster ($102.00 for both sessions)

TEAMS ENTERED

There are 48 teams heading to the Midlands Tournament this year including these full squads (with their current Wrestlestat.com rankings): THE ILLINI, #13 Rutgers, #19 West Virginia, #22 Penn, #28 Arizona State, #30 Virginia, #33 Princeton, #36 Wisconsin, #39 Michigan State, #43 Cal Poly, #46 Ohio, #49 Cleveland State, #51 Harvard, #52 George Mason, #53 Northwestern, #63 Franklin & Marshall, #64 SIUE, and #65 Buffalo. Additionally, you can expect partial squads from Virgina Tech, Pitt, Lehigh, Purdue, Michigan, Ohio State and others. There are usually some post-collegiate wrestlers entered (the IRTC's ERMAK KARDANOV one year) and some non-D1 teams and individuals.

There will also be a Women's tournament wrestled at the same time. Nine teams are taking part, including national powerhouse North Central. From our experience watching junior duals, the ladies will bring the excitement and the loudest cheering sections! 

A DAY IN HISTORY

Travel back with us as we visit December 30, 2022. It was a grim day. Soccer great Pelé passes on to the great green pitch in the sky. A winter storm leaves 90 dead across America. Women in Afghanistan are banned from attending university. 

Mariah Carey tops the charts with  All I Want for Christmas Is You, while Taylor Swift was in the Top Ten with Anti-Hero. At the movies, you could see Avatar: The Way of the Water, but Moms made the whole family go to see Puss in Boots: The Last Wish because your stinky little brother pitched a big fit.  

Everything sucked. 

Except the ILLINI Wrestling team. On that glorious day, the ILLINI crowned two champions at the 58th Annual Ken Kraft Midlands Tournament: Edmond Ruth and Zac Braunagel. Additionally, the ILLINI had two Bronze medalists in Lucas Byrd (robbed by the ref) and Danny Braunagel. On top of all of that, Dylan Connell won six matches to finish fifth, while Danny Pucino won five to place seventh. Trey Sizemore finished as the final ILLINI placer in what was a great tournament. 

Coach Mike Poeta told the good folks over to FightingILLINI.com: 

"Overall I'm proud of the group we brought to the Midlands.... Edmond Ruth and Zac Braunagel had great tournaments. Winning the Midlands is a big deal and that's something they'll have forever. Can't say enough about the toughness of Lucas Byrd, Danny Branagel and Dylan Connell. Some of the things they did and guys they beat was pretty special. Danny Pucino and Trey Sizemore also did a nice job and placed for us. I feel like I keep repeating myself but the group we brought did a lot of good things." 

CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP

The ILLINI Wrestling Blog & Forum & Beyond Plus will be a corporate sponsor of the 59th Annual Ken Kraft Midlands Tournament. What does that mean? We will be advertising on the scoreboard and stuff. There will be t-shirts handed out. Finally, because of the prestigious nature of the sponsorship relationship, we will endeavor to curb our customary use of profanity and nudity down to a more professional level. 

INDIVIDUAL MATCHUPS

The ILLINI have a huge roster, and every year they'll bring a lot of wrestlers to the Midlands, but usually not everybody can make it for various reasons. Of course, the Brawlnagels are wearing Olympic redshirts. Lucas Byrd would be wearing one as well, but he got hurt during the Summer and is on a medical shirt. Which of the Freshmen and other non-starters will make the trip? 

We don't know. We'll make some educated guesses for the ILLINI and also add the wrestlers from other teams. 

125. JUSTIN CARDANI (#74, 2-4). The ILLINI has had a rough start to the year. With the Big Ten dual season right around the corner, he needs to score a lot of wins at the Midlands. Depending on how he works through the bracket, he can get as many as five or six. In fact, nobody in the entire bracket should be seen as unbeatable to him, as he's already beaten the guy who'll be the top seed in the tournament, Wisconsin's Eric Barnett. 

Here's the chief competition at 125 with their Wrestlestat.com ratings, starting with two-time AA #8 Eric Barnett (who is 7-1 on the year already), #9 Dean Peterson of Rutgers, #15 Richie Figueroa of Arizona State, #18 Jett Strickenberger of West Virginia, #19 Max Gallagher of Penn, #21 Diego Sotelo of Harvard, #31 Eli Griffin of Cal Baptist, #40 Tristan Lujan of MSU, #41 Blake West of NIU, #42 Dominic Mendez of Cal Poly, #48 Drew Heethuis of Princeton, #67 Sean Spidle of CMU and #81 Kyle Montaperto of Virginia. 

Everybody else in the tournament not in the list above should be a win for a healthy Justin Cardani. The ILLINI has only wrestled three of these chief contenders, going 1-2 against Barnett (but the last two were losses by major, and one of those matches came in the NCAA tournament), 2-0 against MSU's Tristan Lujan, and 0-1 versus Sean Spidle of CMU (this year's dual).

Justin did win the Covid-year Midland replacement tourney.  

It seems very likely that #118 CAELAN RILEY will make the trip as well. He was suited up in St. Louis for the dual with Missouri, and he's had an energetic season so far with third-place finishes at the Jim Koch and Lindenwood Opens. He's 8-2 on the year, but 3-2 against D1 wrestlers.

133.  ANTHONY MADRIGAL (#48, 1-1). This is another bracket where you have an ILLINI wrestler at or below .500 who'll need to stack up some wins for his tournament resume. There are plenty of wins to be had in this bracket. Also, we are likely to see #67 KOLE BROWER here, as he wrestled in the last dual against Mizzou. 

Madrigal seemed to have reinjured his hamstring in the dual before that. There appear to be a bunch of winnable matches for both of the ILLINI at the Midlands. Here is the chief competition in order of their Wrestlestat.com ranking: 

#10 Michael Colaiocco of Penn, #26 Julian Chlebove of ASU, #30 Mason Leiphart of Franklin & Marshall, #34 Dylan Shawver of Rutgers, #39 Marlon Yarbrough from Virginia, #52 Jameson Garcia of Harvard, #54 Zeth Romney of Cal Poly, #61 Nicolar Rivera of stupid Wisconsin, #73 Hunter Leake of Cal Baptist, #86 Marcel Lopez of SIUE and #89 Mikey Kaminski of NIU.

From our research we found that Kole Brower faced Marcel Lopez of SIUE previously and lost a 3-5 decision. Duh. That was this year's dual! Also, Tony Madrigal has only faced one of the main threats before, coming up with two wins (one by major) over Mikey Kaminski of NIU. 

Besides those two, the ILLINI could also enter BRIAN BEERS. The Midlands usually gives you a few extra slots, but we don't know how many. 

141.  DANNY PUCINO (#40, 3-3). This will be a big tournament for Pucino, as he will have a lot of winnable matches. He missed out on a wildcard to the NCAA tournament last season by an eyelash. So, to build up that resume, he needs to do work starting on Friday. 

The biggest threats in the bracket by Wrestlestat.com rating are #15 Jordan Titus of West Virginia, #17 Mitch Moore from Rutgers, #24 CJ Composto of Penn, #27 Nathan Higley of George Mason, #33 Dylan Layton of Cleveland State, #38 Jack Gioffre from Virginia, #54 Jacob Brya of NIU, #57 Jordan Hamdan of MSU, #68 Danny Martinez of SIUE, #75 Tyler Vasquez of Princeton and #84 Pat Phillips of Franklin & Marshall. 

Danny has the kind of gas tank that is made for two-day tournaments, and he should get a number of wins, likely improving on his 7th place finish from a year ago. Against the main competition listed above, Danny is 1-0 with a tech fall over Martinez of SIUE. 

Will HUDSON GOEBEL and WILLIAM BAYSINGAR make the trip for the ILLINI? That might depend upon the Midland rules. They are new and exciting wrestlers, though true Freshmen in redshirt, for the ILLINI.  

149.  KANNON WEBSTER (#53, 4-0). We all know that Kannon thrives in a tournament environment, and it will be fun to watch him do his thing at the biggest folkstyle tournament in the world. He is criminally undervalued by Wrestlestat.com along with his teammate, JAKE HARRIER (#166 ???, chess notation for a very questionable move, a massive blunder). 

There are high-end wrestlers at this weight coming to the Midlands as well as a long list of very good ones. Here are the main threats listed by their Wrestlestat.com rankings: 

#3 Kyle Parco of ASU, #6 Chance Lamer of Cal Poly, #15 Eligh Rivera of Princeton, #17 Ty Watters from West Virginia, #19 Joseph Zargo of stupid Wisconsin, #28 Caleb Tyus of SIUE, #36 Derek Raike from Ohio, #38 Michael Gioffre of Virginia, #39 Douglas Terry of Cleveland State, #43 Corbyn Munson of CMU, #60 Michael Cetta of Rutgers, #73 Kelly Dunnigan of Penn, #87 Tommy Curran of NIU and #89 Dayne Morton of Cal Baptist. 

That's fifteen wrestlers in the top 90 in the country (with some of them being undervalued Freshmen), along with three-time-AA Kyle Parco and Round of 12er Chance Lamer. Wins against this field will be a huge boost to a wrestler's NCAA resume. Hopefully, Webster (or as Jim Gibbons calls him "Kaden Wesberg") will be on the opposite side of the bracket from Jake Harrier.

It appears that Kannon hasn't met up with any of these fellows in his young college career. Jake is 1-2 verus Caleb Tyus of SIUE. 

157.  JOE ROBERTS (#50, 4-1). Roberts has had a nice start to his season. He can go a long way to cementing an NCAA tournament berth with a bunch of wins here, especially if he can get a win against any of the top six in this weight class. 

On top of that, ILLINI fans know there's also  BRAEDEN SCOLES and LOGAN SWAW, true Freshmen blue-chip recruits, and they could do some damage in this field. Here are the top individuals listed by Wrestlestat.com ratings: 

#8 Jacori Teemer (2x AA) of ASU, #15 Peyten Kellar (NQ) from Ohio, #17 Chase Saldate (Round of 12) of MSU, Trevor Chumbley (Round of 16) of stupid Northwestern, #23 Johnny Lovett (3x NQ) from CMU, #29 Andrew Clark of Rutgers, #33 Jude Swisher from Penn, #34 Caleb Dowling of West Virginia, #40 DJ McGee from George Mason, #46 Legend Lamar from Cal Poly, #75 Ty Raines of Buffalo and #84 Shane Heil of Cleveland State. 

Against the listed main competition, Joe Roberts is 1-1, with a win over Johnny Lovett and a loss to Chase Saldate. He also beat 3x Missouri state champion Brock Woodcock of SIUE who just missed making this list.

165.  CADEN ERND, CHRIS MOORE or LUKE ODOM. The ILLINI have a bunch of young-uns at this weight while DANNY BRAUNAGEL prepares for the Olympic Team Trials. They have all seen regular season dual action. They will face a top-heavy list of opponents in the field:

#4 Dean Hamiti (2x AA) from stupid Wisconsin, Peyton Hall (AA) of West Virginia, #11 Garrett Thompson (already has 18 wins this year) from Ohio, #13 Caleb Fish (R12) from MSU, #27 Maxx Mayfield of stupid Northwestern, #37 Joshua Kim from Harvard, #50 Nick Hamilton of Virginia, #57 Lucas Reyano of Penn, #59 Anthony White of Rutgers, #82 Tate Geiser of Cleveland State, #83 Blaine Bergey of Princeton and #87 Chance McLane of ASU. 

Besides the top two competitors, the young ILLINI should be able to find a lot of quality wins in that field. Not quite making the list are Bradley Gillum of SIUE, who Luke Odom beat in the dual and CMU's Tyler Swiderski, who Caden Ernd beat in the dual with CMU.

Another ILLINI entrant could be COOPER WETTIG unless he's grown another six inches since last Thursday. Is he playing basketball now? He was taller than the Mizzou 184lber.  

174. EDMOND RUTH (#16 ???, 5-1). You can expect Edmond to be out for blood after Mizzou ambushcaded him with their secret plans. As a returning Champion, I'd expect him to get the top seed, even though there are others somehow rated above him by Wrestlestat.com:

#11 Nick Incontrera of Penn (NQx2), #12 Justin McCoy (R12 & R16) of Virgina, #20 Phillip Conigliaro (R12 & R16) of Harvard, #28 Adam Kemp (NQ) from Cal Poly, #31 Brody Conley of West Virginia, #34 Alex Cramer of CMU, #36 Sal Perrine of Ohio, #42 Jackson Turley (AA) of Rutgers, #55 DJ Shannon of MSU (and before that, the ILLINI!), #73 Peter Acciardi of Cal Baptist, #75 Cael Valencia of ASU, #78 Noah Fox of Franklin & Marshall and #85 David Ferrante of stupid Northwestern.

There are a lot of people on that list rated ahead of David Ferrante, which tells you that this is a very solid field. Still, past-Champion Edmond Ruth has to be the favorite here. Ruth is 2-0 against the other possible one seed, Incontrera of Penn. He was also a major decision winner over another potential high seed Conigliaro of Harvard. On top of that, the ILLINI has beaten Conley, Cramer (x2), the All American Jackson Turley of Rutgers, and Acciardi of Cal Baptist. 

He's undefeated against this field. 

184.  DYLAN CONNELL (#40, 2-2).  This is another ILLINI wrestler who could use a lot of wins to pad his resume for the NCAA tournament. He qualified last year, but it is something that everybody has to do every year. The field affords him the opportunity for some quality wins:

#11 Brian Soldano (R16) of Rutgers, #27 Dennis Robin (NQ) of West Virgina, #30 James Conway from Franklin & Marshall, #31 Troy Fisher (R16) of stupid Northwestern, #34 Maximus Hale of Penn, #39 Zayne Lehman of Ohio, #40 Nate Dugan from Princeton, #44 Tony Negron of ASU, #48 Max Maylor from stupid Wisconsin, #52 Matt Zuber of NIU, #56 Hudson Stewart of Virginia, #65 Kendall LaRosa from Cal Poly, #68 Misha Lomboy from MSU, #74 Nathan Haas of Cal Baptist, #80 Chase Krantz of Buffalo and #89 Leonardo Tarantino of Harvard.

Not a very top-heavy bracket at all! If he's recovered from his foot in a boot, and if his gas tank is back up to par, Dylan can do some real damage against a super strong bracket that doesn't have any world beaters in it. 

Dylan lost an SV match against the likely top seed Soldano at the B1G tournament. He also lost a close one to him at Midlands last season. He dropped a two-point decision against Lehman of Ohio in one of his first varsity matches. He teched Tarantino of Harvard last year at Midlands on his way to a fifth-place finish.

At the tournament last season, Dylan also had quality wins over Dylan Fishback of NC State and Rylan Rogers of Michigan. The latter is important because Rogers might end up being there for Michigan.

Another ILLINI who might be entered is the transfer from Ohio, CHARLIE HEYDORN. We are hoping the Director of Midlands told Coach Poeta: "Load up all teh buses." 

197.  ISIAH PETTIGREW (#113 ???, 2-4). Pettigrew's rating and record are deceiving. Just ask Rocky Elam. The ILLINI lost to two other AA threats as well. The Midlands field is pretty solid in the middle, but Isiah has a shot to get on the podium here. These will be his main competitiors:

#15 Luke Stout of Princeton, #16 John Poznanski of Rutgers, #28 Ben Smith of Cleveland State, #35 Martin Cosgrove from Penn, #41 Kael Wisler of MSU, #42 Evan Bates of stupid Northwestern, #48 John Crawford from Franklin & Marshall, #50 Sam Mitchell of Buffalo, #62 Austin Cooley from West Virginia, #66 Shane Liegel from stupid Wisconsin, #74 Carter Grewe from NIU, #81 Colden Dorfman of Virginia, #86 Austin Starr of Ohio and #90 Ryan Yarnell of SIUE:

Pettigrew beat Yarnell from SIUE at the dual, and he also beat #132 Cameron Wood of CMU in that other dual. Zac Braunagel beat Luke Stout in last year's semifinals, and Isiah lost to his brother Mac Stout of Pitt (who isn't in the field). Just some interesting trivia.

There is a possibility that JOEY BRAUNAGEL and CHASE WAGGONER and SUNGYUP RYU and true Freshman PETER MARINOPOULOS show up for the ILLINI at this weight. We suspect it will depend on how many entries the organizers allow per team.  

285.  LUKE LUFFMAN (#16, 4-2). The big guy will face a strong field, but he wouldn't surprise anybody if he was a finalist. Luke has two losses on the season, but they were both whisker close against the numbers six and nine heavyweights. We would love to see him wrestle Cohlton Schultz or Yaraslau Slavikouski or, even better, both! These are the main competitors Luuuke faces:

#4 Cohlton Schultz (AAx3) of ASU, #11 Yaraslau Slavikouski (R12) from Rutgers, #27 Michael Wolfgram (NQx2) from West Virginia, #28 Daniel Bucknavich of Cleveland State, #43 Jack Jessen of stupid Northwestern, #45 Matthew Cover (NQ) from Princeton, #48 Chad Nix of George Mason, #54 Josh Terrill of MSU, #62 Bryan Caves from CMU, #66 Jacobi Jackson from NIU, Ryan Catka from Virginia, #70 Cole Jackson of Cal Poly, #80 John Stout of Penn, #82 Jordan Greer of Ohio and #104 Peter Christensen of stupid Wisconsin.

How did Jack Jessen get a #43 rating? We are stunned!

Another ILLINI who might be entered is DANIEL RENSHAW, who hails from the picturesque town of Mahomet. (We wanted to put the phrase "picturesque town of Mahomet" on the internet because we doubt that it is there yet.). Go Bulldogs! 

Luffman has only had two matches against that list, coming out on top of CMU's Caves in the dual by major, 18-6, and winning by fall over Peter Christensen of Wisky. In fact, we put the Badger on the list even though he wasn't ranked in the top ninety for this reason, yes, for this reason only:

 

Wait for it. Wait for it. There! At the end! Chunked him x2!