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Argos impress on Day1 at NAIAs

By KFBB Sports_Team

Story Created: Mar 4, 2010 at 10:40 PM MST

Story Updated: Mar 4, 2010 at 10:40 PM MST

Oklahoma City, OK – The University of Great Falls looked impressive on the opening day of the 53rd Annual NAIA Wrestling National Championships at Abe Lemons Arena on the campus of Oklahoma City University, winning eight of their 11 first round matches and racking up 28 team points thus far. The Argos point total is good for fifth heading into the final two days of the tournament. At current, Notre Dame College (OH) leads the pack with 44 points followed by Southern Oregon University (38 points), Missouri Valley University (32 points) and McKendree University (IL) (31 points) to round out the top five.

“I was pretty happy yesterday when the brackets came out and I felt like we wrestled pretty solid today,” said UGF head coach Caleb Schaeffer. “We won the matches were supposed to win and we’ve set ourselves up well for the remainder of the tournament. We are right where we want to be.”

Victorious in the opening round for Schaeffer’s squad was freshman Myles Mazurkiewicz (Havre, MT) at 133 pounds, senior Jason Costello (Redmond, WA) at 141 pounds, junior Ross Mosher (Augusta, MT) at 157 pounds, sophomore Noah Hatton (Spokane, WA) and red-shirt freshman Michael Hader (Columbia Falls, MT) at 165 pounds, senior Brendon DeCock (Huntley, MT) at 174 pounds, junior Michael French (Malta, MT) at 184 pounds and senior Alex Calvi (Cut Bank, MT) at 197 pounds. Junior Byron Kuylen (Sidney, MT) was the lone Argo to draw a bye into the second round.

The highlight of the opening round was Hatton’s 14-9 victory over John Murray of Lindenwood University (MO). Murray placed second at last year’s national tournament and Hatton was up for the challenge, fighting off two spats with blood, one from his nose and one from his forehead, to score the impressive upset.

“Hatton wrestled like a man possessed against Murray,” Schaeffer said. “It was great to see him have some success against a top quality opponent.”

The second round proved to be not as generous to the Argos as they went 5-4 for the round. Of the five wins, three came by pin-fall. The greenhorn Mazurkiewicz started it off with his pin-fall win and the round was finished with back-to-back pin-falls by the veterans French and Calvi. Kuylen and Hader added the Argos’ two other wins in the round. All five wrestlers will compete in the quarterfinal round tomorrow morning.


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