Only ten games left in the 2022-23 NCAA D1 wrestling season and I'm in Tulsa, Oklahoma to blog for you live from inside the BOK Center! We start at 157 pounds and finish with Yianni Diakomihalis to join the wrestling royal and four-time champion club. We've got some time before the first whistle blows, but let's take a look at the arena a few hours before the ESPN broadcast begins. National Anthem training run pic.twitterIk7avW9WgS — Andrew Spey March 18, 2023 By the way, the numbers below are the seeds. 157 #1 Austin O'Connor, North Carolina - #2 Levi Haines, Penn State AOC four-time All-American and five-time qualifying. The Chicago native finished third as a freshman, won a championship in 2021, and finished 8th last year. Haines is a true freshman and Pennsylvania native. He trained in high school as Penn State legend David Taylor's wrestling club. 1st period And here we go! Oh yes, Trump is here with Congressman MarkWayne Mullin. But with all due respect to planet earth, I will continue to blog about wrestling from now on. Nor will I joke about how this first game got AOC. I will not do this. It's not prudent. I'm not about it. I just thought it was remarkable. No goals halfway through the first period. A few half shots but no risk and the period ends 0-0. 2nd semester. The AOC was delayed and Haines chose down. Haines rolls on his back and needed to be careful but no swipes. AOC takes 45 seconds before going out of bounds. Haines returns again and this time AOC deletes it twice. Or is it him? A brick comes out of the PSU corner in time. The action continues. AOC runs up to 128 drive time before going off-site again. They will examine the call to approach. And the points are off the board, the call is broken. They rewind the clock to the call time and the AOC stays on top. AOC is tough at the top and skipping the period. Still 0-0 but O'Connor has 200 RT. 3rd period Bottom row at O'Connor. AOC stood up and was out of the game in 7 seconds, making little effort to keep AOC down which is probably a strategically correct move. AOC blows up this plan by making a low double and making the lead 3-0. A quick escape from O'Connor, Haines attacks, but AOC counters and with another takedown that will likely freeze him. An escape from Haines but with RT locked this time in the bag. And that's it. Austin O'Connor is a two-time NCAA champion 6-2 finals. AOC is the second two-time champion in UNC history. The other is 3X champion TJ Jaworsky. And the AOC will shake hands with Trump. Again, I'm not making any further comments, just pointing out a fact that might be of interest to you. No jokes here. 165 #1 David Carr, State of Iowa and #2 Keegan O'Toole, Missouri Wisconsin native Keegan O'Toole is a three-time AA. He finished 3rd as a freshman in 2021 and won the 165lb championship last season. David Car is also an NCAA champion and earned 157 points in 2021. He was third last year. Carr also beat KO'T in the regular season and this season's Big 12 finals. David's father is a bronze medalist at the 1988 Olympics. 1st period The final game between these two went into overtime, where Carr locked a cradle with a sudden win and ended the game on a relegation. Before that it was very tight. One leg for O'Toole without misdirecting. He holds it in the air, then comes to the mat. Carr's great defense lowered his hip and O'Toole yawned. Impasse. O'Toole shoots Carr out of bounds. No distraction, many in the arena oppose this decision. By O''Toole, he finished relatively clean this time, battling a shin buzz. KOT took the boarding and 2-0 lead. 2nd semester. Carr is downloading. 37 second duration and counts in Keegan's favour. Carr escapes at 103. Another hit of O'Toole, into the fight. 30 seconds coward, Carr looks like he's taking the corner. He's around for two! Oh no it's not! Rewards 2, waves, action continues. Halftime ends 2-1 Keegan, but Coach Dresser wants to take the challenge, saying that he has indeed been beaten. Relatively quick review and no takedown calls. 3rd period O'Toole starts downward. His driving time was reduced to 53 seconds, and Carr interrupted O'Toole. He's been hit, he's hit again by Carr, and he's in the deep. O'Toole begins to fear danger. O'Toole shakes his hip and two for Keegan. This is a wearer for Carr. The driving time is again more than a minute. Desperate to escape, Carr is caught when O'Toole spreads his legs. score back! And race to win 8-2! Great performance by Keegan. He turns the script around and O'Toole now has as many titles as his mentor, Funky Ben Askren. Some might say O'Toole is Funky 2.0. 174 #1 Carter Starocci, Penn State vs #2 Mikey Labriola, Nebraska Erie, Pennsylvania native Carter Starocci has won his third NCAA tournament, a tournament where he has never lost a game, the last two titles at 174 pounds. Also a Pennsylvanian, but from the Lehigh Valley at the other end of the state, Labriola has been a five-time NCAA qualifier and a four-time AA. He finished 6th, 3rd, and 7th at the last three contested NCAA Championships. 1st semester 184 #1 Parker Keckeisen, Northern Iowa - #3 Aaron Brooks, Penn State Keckeisen, like O'Toole, is a Wisconsin native and trained at Askren Wrestling Academy. He finished third with 184 in the last two seasons. Maryland's Aaron Brooks is a two-time NCAA champion and, like teammate Starocci, has never lost a game in the NCAA. 1st semester 197 Number 1 Nino Bonaccorsi, Pitt - Number 7 Tanner Sloan, State of South Dakota Local Pittsburgh native Nino Bonaccorsi is a 5-time qualifier and two-time All-American, making it to the finals in 2021. He did a blood tour in 2019 and 2022. Sloan is a first-time All-American. The Iowa native had finished in the last 12 two years ago and won 1-2 last season. 1st semester 285 #1 Mason Parris, Michigan and #2 Greg Krkvliet, Penn State Originally from Lawrenceburg, Indiana, Parris is a 5X qualifier and triple placer. He finished second in 2021 and finished 5th last season. He also received several D1 football scholarship offers that he turned down to pursue the sport of wrestling full-time in college. Kerkvliet is a Minnesota native who has qualified and appeared in all three NCAA tournaments. He was 7th two years ago and 4th last year. He's also been beaten twice this year by Parris, once in duos and in the Big Tens. 1st semester 125 #2 Pat Glory, Princeton - #4 Matt Ramos, Purdue Glory, a Delbarton graduate in Morris County, New Jersey, finished 6th in 2019 and 2nd in 2022 as a four-time qualifier and three-time AA. He had to miss the 2021 season according to Ivy League rules. Matt Ramos is a sophomore at his second NCAA tournament. The Chicagoland native was a feud last year. He beat Spencer Lee in the semifinals this year. you may have heard. 1st semester 133 1. Roman Bravo-Young, Penn State - 3. Vito Arujau, Cornell Roman Bravo-Young is a Tuscon, Arizona native and is seeking his third NCAA title. It also placed 8th in 2019. He's also an expert on RBY, Call of Duty, or one of the other First Person Shooter video games I can't remember right now. But if you want to learn more, watch FloWrestling or the RBY documentary available on YouTube and possibly elsewhere. Vito Arujau, a young and three-time All-American from Long Island, New York, finished 4th in 2019 and 3rd last season. His father, like David Carr's father, is an Olympic bronze medalist. 1st semester 141 #1 Real Woods, Iowa and #2 Andrew Alirez, Northern Colorado Hailing from Albuquerque, New Mexico and attending Montini Catholic high school in Chicago, Woods is a 2X AA who started his career at Stanford and transferred to Iowa before the 2021-22 season, where he finished 6th for the Hawkeyes. Alirez's hometown is the town of Greeley, Colorado, where you'll find the Northern Colorado campus. Because they grew up in their own home, Alirez qualified for their third NCAA tournament, but this is the first time they've made medal rounds. 1st semester 149 1. Yianni Diakomihalis, Cornell vs. 2. Sammy Sasso, Ohio State We close with Hilton, NY native Yianni Diakomihalis, who wanted only five people to win her fourth NCAA title and achieve that feat. Yianni also won the world silver medal in the 65kg last summer, his first medal in the men's freestyle since 2006. Trying to subvert Yianni's historic quest for four championships is Sammy Sasoo of Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, like Labriola. He finished fifth last year and finished second in 2021. 1st semester Gotopnews.com