RECAP: BRAWLNAGEL & BYRD at the NWCA All-Star Classic

ZAC BRAUNAGEL

We hate to be "that guy," but, you know, we have to be that guy sometimes. What you see below is a takedown. It was called out of bounds by the refs, but it was a takedown, and it would've been useful in a 1-1 match. 

The ref didn't even call Little for stalling when he dove off the mat. He had started to flee Zac's underhook in the middle of the mat and just kept moving to the edge of the circle. 

What led to the takedown that wasn't was a deep underhook, a penetration step and a level change that led to a single. The penetration allowed Brawny to dive for and secure both legs. If the screengrab above wasn't convincing enough, check out this one:

Note the time on the clock. That's a takedown 100% of the time. The silver lining to this fiasco is that this takedown (and the one he secured against Jacob Warner to win that match as well as others) will be available to him at the NCAA tournament. 

The video on FloWrestling is 19:17 long. 

A lot of guts were spilled on that mat. Both wrestlers had half-a-dozen clear opportunities to score, but great defense stopped the good offense. Each escaped, and they went to sudden victory, then tie-breakers. Zac had escaped from bottom in regulation in about :02, but in the tie break period, Little grabbed his ankle and rode him out. With Zac on top, Little tried a bunch of granby rolls and only succeeded with :06 left. 

The score ended 2-1, and the crowd gave both warriors a standing ovation.

 

LUCAS BYRD

This was an important match for this reason: When Lucas Byrd has your number, it's basically all over. It could be psychological or coincidence, but if he beats you, he will keep beating you after that. With Nasir Bailey coming in ranked #2, that bodes well for the ILLINI. Somewhere, sometime, deep in the NCAA tournament, they have a very good chance to meet again. 

We said in a recent post that this could be a preview of the Championship match. 

Ryan Crookham of Lehigh has only wrestled one match so far this season, and it was against the #243 rated wrestler in D1. The rest of his Mountain Hawk teammates have already wrestled eight times.

The first period ended 0-0. The crowd loved the flurry when Bailey used a shrug-by to get behind Lucas, and Lucas rolled out of trouble. 

In the second, Lucas took down. The announcers made a big to-do about this because Bailey has these nice tilts, you see, but, guys, Byrd almost always gets a reversal from the bottom. And he almost did it again. He was standing up with Nasir's leg in the air on the side of the mat when the ILLINI coaches told him to let go and get the for-sure escape point. 

This is what that looked like (note the riding time clock at :48 and still ticking at that time):

 

Instead of going down in the third period, Nasir elects to go neutral. As an aside, ya'll know that Bailey is ILLINI Legend B.J. Futrell's nephew, right? The final period saw Bailey unable to crack Byrd's square position. When he finally got to a leg, it was Byrd is the Wyrd with the funk roll (THANK YOU, JESSE DELGADO) and subsequent elevation to deny the UALR wrestler and threaten his own takedown as time ran out:

Lucas Byrd became a two-time NWCA All-Star Classic winner! The picture below shows Lucas as he was paraded around the mat for the arm raises. The best part of the whole video was at the end when Lucas nonchalantly walked back to his coaches, and they gave him a nonchalant You-Did-Your-Job welcome. 

Over to the ILLINI Wrestling Blog & Forum & Beyond Plus we think that Lucas has decided to be impossible to take down. In seven matches so far this season, he's not given up a single takedown, and he's faced a quality group, including the #2, #14, #24, #42, #43 and #45 wrestlers in the country. He's held the #2, #14 and #24 wrestlers scoreless. 

Defense wins championships!