Bison win eight of 10 individual titles

The Forum, Fargo, North Dakota

By Hayden Goethe hgoethe@forumcomm.com
Sports - 11/09/2003

Entering his 40th season as North Dakota State wrestling coach, Bucky Maughan beamed with the optimism of a novice following the Bison Open Saturday.

And why not.

NDSU wrestlers opened the season taking eight of 10 individual titles at the Bison Sports Arena.

“It was a good tournament,” Maughan said. “I’ll take this any time.”

Five of the 10 championship matches pitted Bison against Bison in what Maughan called a “dominating” performance by NDSU. No team scores were kept because of the size of the field.

Paul Carlson, Mike Fiedler, Thad Pike and Brian Kraemer defended their titles from last season’s tournament, as did Minnesota State University Moorhead’s Ryan Kopiasz.

The field was smaller than in years past. The University of Minnesota, which has won the most individual titles in Bison Open history, were a late scratch from the meet. Maughan would have liked to see more schools, but he wasn’t there to watch them. “I want to see how our guys do,” Maughan said. MSUM won the remaining two individual titles behind new coach Keenan Spiess. Like Maughan, Spiess was delighted with his team’s performance. “This is always a good tour nament to see where you are at,” Spiess said.

Spiess felt this was as well as the Dragons had ever done at the Bison Open.

NDSU’s Nick Magee, Zach Stevens, Lucas Christianson and Joe Bryce won their firstever titles at the Bison Open.

Despite the titles, Maughan found plenty of shortcomings for his Bison wrestlers to work on.

“We’re still not as good against legs,” Maughan said. “We’ve got to quit flopping away. Our guys were flopping around a lot.”

NDSU has plenty of time to work. The Bison don’t enter competition again until Nov. 22 when they compete in the Kaufman-Brand Open in Omaha, Neb. “Our expectations are high, (so) it was a great start for us,” Maughan said. Championship matches 125: Radunz, MSUM dec. Hartnell, Mary 3-1 133: Magee, NDSU dec. Fisher, JC 6-0 141: Christianson, NDSU dec. Eskelson, MSUM 9-5 149: Stevens, NDSU dec. Kelly, NDSU 5-3 157: Carlson, NDSU dec. Toops, MSUM 12-8 165: Fiedler, NDSU maj. dec. Pickar, NDSU 13-5 174: Pike, NDSU dec. Dahlstrom, NDSU 3-1 184: Kopiasz, MSUM dec. Hermann, NDSU 8-3 197: Kraemer, NDSU dec. Benz, NDSU 10-4 285: Bryce, NDSU dec. Tuchscherer, NDSU 2-1 (sv).

Readers can reach Forum reporter Hayden Goethe at (701) 241-5549