{"id":212390,"date":"2025-12-31T02:07:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T02:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/212390\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T02:07:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T02:07:07","slug":"no-17-wrestling-claims-team-title-at-midlands-championships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/212390\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 17 Wrestling Claims Team Title at Midlands Championships"},"content":{"rendered":"

EVANSTON, Ill. \u2013\u00a0Despite not sending a full roster, No. 17 Rutgers wrestling claimed its first Ken Kraft Midlands Championships Team Title in school history on Tuesday in Evanston, Illinois.
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\nBehind individual titles from No. 15 Shane Cartagena-Walsh<\/a> (184) and No. 25 Hunter Catka<\/a> (HWT), along with runner-up results from No. 18 Remy Cotton<\/a> (197) and No. 32 Andrew Barbosa<\/a> (165), the Scarlet Knights finished with 93 team points, ahead of No. 14 Pittsburgh (92.5) and Bucknell (83).
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\nWith it being an unofficial date on its competition calendar, RU was only able to send six student-athletes to compete attached at the championships. With two attached entrants at both 165 and 197 pounds, only four of those scores counted towards the team title.
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\n“Winning a team title at this historic tournament is a pretty cool achievement,” said head coach Scott Goodale<\/a>. “I’m happy for these guys that they were able to come here, compete and get it done. It’s pretty exciting to have nine out of our 10 guys place. We wrestled a lot of matches and have a lot of work to do, but we’ll build off this team title heading into our Big Ten dual schedule.”
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\nIt marks the first Midlands team title in school history after the program finished second last season and in 2017. Along with a fourth-place result from Ryan Ford<\/a> (165) and an eighth-place finish from PJ Casale<\/a> (197), all six entrants placed for Rutgers.
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\nIt also represents the program’s second team championship of the 2025-26 season after the Scarlet Knights won the 2025 Keystone Classic in Philadelphia.
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\n2025 Midlands Championships Placewinners
\nFirst: 15\/18 Shane Cartagena-Walsh<\/a> (184)
\nFirst: 25\/24 Hunter Catka<\/a> (HWT)
\nSecond: 18\/16 Remy Cotton<\/a> (197)
\nSecond: 32\/NR Andrew Barbosa<\/a> (165)
\nFourth: Ryan Ford<\/a> (165)
\nFourth: Conner Harer<\/a> (157)*
\nSeventh: 20\/14 Dylan Shawver<\/a> (133)*
\nEighth: Jordan Chapman<\/a> (174)*
\nEighth: PJ Casale<\/a> (197)
\n* competed unattached.<\/p>\n

In unattached action, Conner Harer<\/a> (157) finished fourth, while No. 20 Dylan Shawver<\/a> (133) and Jordan Chapman<\/a> finished seventh and eighth, respectively.

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\nIn his heavyweight title match, Catka faced No. 21 Devon Dawson (Northern Illinois), using a nine-point third period to cruise to a 12-2 major decision. It marked Catka’s second consecutive ranked win at the championships, after he earned a victory over No. 23 Trevor Tinker (Cal Poly) by injury default after leading Tinker 5-1 in the third period.

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\nCartagena-Walsh earned a title at 184 pounds thanks to a medical forfeit by No. 32 Chris Moore (Illinois), but the redshirt sophomore was dominant throughout the two-day tournament. Cartagena-Walsh won all of his bouts by bonus points, including three consecutive tech falls to advance to the semifinals. Cartagena-Walsh outscored his opponents, 66-20 prior to the medical forfeit.

\n\u00a0

\nBarbosa and Cotton both wrestled in their respective championship bouts. Barbosa lost by 4-3 decision to e’Than Birden (Ohio State), while Cotton suffered a loss by major decision to 2025 NCAA qualifier Seth Shumate (Ohio State).

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\nAfter losing his second match of the tournament, Ford wrestled back with five consecutive wins to reach his third-place match. Ford registered two pins and two major decisions on the backside of the bracket, including a 10-1 win over No. 21 Noah Mulvaney (Bucknell).

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\nAs the No. 21 seed, Casale advanced to the championships quarterfinals before moving to the wrestlebacks, where he picked up a win to place eighth.

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\nRutgers also had success from its unattached wrestlers, with Harer competing in the third-place match at 157 pounds. Harer picked up a win over three-time NCAA qualifier Kal Miller (Maryland) in overtime \u2013 one of his five wins during the tournament.

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\nChapman worked back-to-back wins over top-10 seeds to advance to the quarterfinals, finishing with three wins and two falls. Shawver earned a seventh-place result after he defeated No. 28 Markel Baker (Northern Illinois).

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\nUp Next

\nRutgers wrestles at No. 1 Penn State on Saturday, Jan. 10 in University Park. The 4 p.m. dual is set for a national broadcast on Big Ten Network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EVANSTON, Ill. \u2013\u00a0Despite not sending a full roster, No. 17 Rutgers wrestling claimed its first Ken Kraft Midlands…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-212390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}