A Tough Finn Grinaker Cobber Open

MOORHEAD, Minn. (11/19/16)—Concordia welcomed 13 schools to the annual Finn Grinaker Cobber Open and came away with eight Top 5 finishes at the meet.

Once again the Cobber coaching staff used the multi-invitational meet to help some wrestlers gain experience while others needed to get more matches in to get ready for the long season ahead.

"We had a select group of wrestlers at the meet," commented head coach Phil Moenkedick. "We've been fighting some injuries and we wanted to see some of our other athletes go against quality competition."

The competition at the meet was once again at a very high level. Concordia welcomed wrestlers from schools which included Division I North Dakota State and St. Cloud State who is ranked No.1 in Division II.

The invite was broken into two groups with upperclassmen competing in the Gold Division while freshmen and newcomers were placed in the Maroon Division.

First-year athlete Joseph Grove tied for the title in the maroon division at 174 he went 2-1 in the group that was settled on a round robin basis. Grove earned his first collegiate victory when he pinned Logan Rhode of MSU Moorhead in the first round. Grove then put up his second pin fall in the second round by beating Michael Lambert of Northland. Grove dropped an 8-2 decision in the third round but three wrestlers in the weight class all had 2-1 records and all three tied for championship honors.

Concordia had one other wrestler compete in the maroon bracket. Travis Adams finished second at 285. He won his first two matches and then fell in the championship match. Adams won his opener by a pin fall and the recorded a 4-1 win in the semifinals.

The Cobbers had six athletes get fifth-place in their weight class. Hunter SantAmour and Justice Davis were the other Top 5 finisher for Concordia. SantAmour went 3-2 and finished fourth in the gold division at 197. He won his first two matches of the day on a pin fall and 5-2 decision. SantAmour lost in the semifinals to an athlete from St. Cloud State. He then rebounded with a 5-2 win over Cody Anderson from MSU Moorhead in the consolation semifinals. SantAmour lost 7-6 to one of the NDSU athletes at the meet.

Nick Gravdahl, Parker Jackson, Ricky Briggs and Kody VanDenEykel had the fifth-place finishes for the Cobbers.

COBBER RESULTS BY WEIGHT CLASS
GOLD DIVISION
141 – Adam Presler 2-2
149 – Ty Johnson 2-3, sixth place; Ben Baumgartner 0-2
157 – Nick Gravdahl 2-2, fifth place
165 – Travis Deegan 2-2
174 – Parker Jackson 2-2, fifth place
184 – Ricky Briggs 1-2, fifth place
197 – Hunter SantAmour 3-2, fourth place
197 – Jacob Briggs 1-2, sixth place
285 – Justice Davis 0-2; Kody VanDenEykel 0-3   

MAROON DIVISION
174 – Joseph Grove 2-1, first place
285 – Travis Adams 2-1, second place

WHAT'S NEXT: Concordia will have a break for the Thanksgiving holiday and will then return to action when they take on the University of Mary in a dual meet on Thursday, Dec. 1 at 7 p.m. The Cobbers will host the dual meet at West Fargo HS.