For the first time in two years, the Michigan State Open welcomed wrestlers from all over the country to compete in the first weekend of competition this season. The meet featured 22 different schools and over 300 wrestlers. Notable schools participating were in-state rivals Northwestern and Northern Illinois and other Big Ten participants such as Wisconsin, Michigan, Penn State and defending national champion Iowa.

The Illini went into the meet ranked 18th in the nation by the National Wrestling Coaches Association. While this shows strength in the Illinois program, head coach Mike Poeta still knows that the team has tough competition ahead of them. 

“One of the hardest things is getting your mind focused, getting your body ready and willing to fight hard,” Poeta said. “We have to be willing to get ourselves going, give it everything we have and try to win as many wrestling matches throughout the day.”

At the last MSU Open hosted before the COVID-19 pandemic, Illinois had a solid performance with eight Illinois wrestlers earning top-six finishes. 

Most of those wrestlers still remain on the team, including redshirt senior Dylan Duncan, redshirt sophomores Danny and Zac Braunagel, sophomores Luke Luffman, DJ Shannon and Trey Sizemore and redshirt freshman Lucas Byrd.

The freshman class made statement performances in their first outing with Illinois. Caden Ernd had a sixth-place finish in the freshman/sophomore 174 division and was accompanied by second-place finishes in the freshman/sophomore 184 and 197 divisions by fellow freshmen Dylan Connell and Joey Braunagel, respectively.

Illinois also saw 2021 All-American Byrd continue his dominance in the 133 division after going 17-4 last year and finishing fifth in the NCAA Championship.

Byrd won his first two matches handedly against Caleb Tanner of Oklahoma by fall (3:24) and Vince Perez of Central Michigan (19-8) before losing in the semifinals in overtime to Tony Madrigal of Oklahoma (3-1). He then went on to beat Kyle Burwick of Wisconsin by decision (5-2) before heading into his final match, taking down Dylan Ragusin of Michigan (5-2) to secure third place.

Another promising performance was Shannon in the 174 division. After close wins over Adam Kemp of California Polytechnic (7-6) and Logan Stanley of Ohio University (6-5), he was disqualified during his semifinals match against Northwestern’s Troy Fisher for allegedly biting his opponent.

“No one on our team would ever do that to anybody; DJ is a great kid,” Poeta said. “I think it was a fluke thing where this guy complained enough, and the referee made a poor decision.”

Regardless of what actually happened, the referee made a decision, and Shannon was eliminated, finishing in sixth place.

“We’ll just live with it, and we’ll go on,” Poeta said.

Luffman capped off the meet in the 285 division, beating Keigan Yuhas of Findlay (11-5) before falling to Lucas Davison of Northwestern (10-4) in the semifinal. The Urbana native then went on to defeat Jonathan Spaulding of Edinboro (4-1) and overpowered Peter Christensen of Wisconsin by fall (3:00) to give the Illini another third-place finish.

The Illini left East Lansing with 10 top-six finishers, a strong start to the new season.

“(The result) showed me we have a lot of good guys, but the one thing I’m really trying to improve upon is our consistency,” Poeta said. “We have guys on our team who can be national champions, that can beat anyone in the country. We show that sometimes, but other times we don’t, and it has to be an everyday thing.”

The Illini will look to build that consistency on Nov. 14 as Appalachian State hosts the Mountaineer Invitational in Boone, North Carolina.

@JonathanAlday7

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