With a nice showing, Baker U. places 8 with 2 finalists, one champion, and 2 more more qualifiers for the nationals.

Anyone know where to view the brackets or have more complete individual results?

Ask and ye shall receive:

http://www.hastings.edu/downloads/2010%20Quality%20Hotel%20Open.PDF

I came up with nine Baker placers.

1. Billy Benz 125-- 3rd (I originally reported as fourth place this is a correction. I have been notified that the bracket reporting was incorrect)
2. Alan Callahan 125-- 5th
3. Jordan McGuire 133-- 6th
4. Kalem Bennett 141-- 6th
5. Nathan Sommer 157-- 5th
6. Clarence Jordan 174-- 4th
7. Jacob Nowak 184--2nd
8. Brandon Gebhardt 197--1st
9. Levi Calhoun 285--6th

Special congratulations to Brandon Gebhardt who I believe with this first place finish is the first open wrestling champion in Baker University history! Great job, Brandon and to the rest of the Baker placers.

I also noticed these other Kansas placers at this tournament. Please let us know if I missed any other Kansas placers.

Trent Cox UNO 141-- 5th place
Mitch Arnold Newman 149--5th place
Jameon Rush Hastings College 174--2nd place
Matt Baker UNO 184--1st place

I was not rooting for Matt Baker in his final match which I am sure he can understand but special congratulations also to Matt Baker who I believe has won this tournament for the second year in a row. Great job, Matt.

Another Kansas wrestler who I just noticed that placed is Tyler Hasenbank of Newman University. Tyler took third place in 184.

Shanks didnt win for third place. Nice job Brandon!

What does Shanks didn't win for third place mean?

It means what it means. lol. I beat him. and its wrong in the brackets too thats weird, i even gave them my autograph!

Actually in 125 lbs, a lot of the scores are wrong I noticed. HuskerFAn you watching the same tournament? lol jk jk

Vince -

I understand perfectly you not rooting for Matt and thanks for the congratulations. You are also correct, this was his 2nd year winning the Hastings Open.

We heard many specators wondering about Baker University and I was happy to tell them a little about the new program. Lots of positive comments regarding the new wrestling program! Although, we did have to pay extra close attention to the announcer to determine if he was calling Matt Baker or a Baker University wrestler.

Good luck to Jacob and the other Baker wrestlers for the rest of the season

The problem I am having with your original post is that I do not know who you are referring to. You are using the nickname Shanks and I do not know who that is. The only thing I can guess is that you might be referring to the 184 pound 3rd place match between Tyler Hasenbank of Newman College and Bryan Irsik of York College because Hasenback is the only person I mentioned as third place. Is this the match that you are referring to?

I did not attend the tournament and I got that entirely off of the listing on the brackets. It certainly is possible for the brackets to have been incorrect. It would not be the first time that has happened. Regardless I should have also mentioned Bryan Irsik of York College as a Kansas placer in this tournament. I believe Bryan Irsik is from Garden City, Kansas. Congratulations to Bryan for placing at this tournament.

Thank you, Lou Ann. You know I am one of Matt's biggest fans. He is really having a great first two years in his college wrestling career. Tell Matt great work and to keep it up.

Thanks for the update Andy. What a good teammate you are! Baker is lucky to have you.

Okay, now I understand what he was reporting. I just did not understand his original post. If he had stated that brackets were incorrect and that Billy Benz finished third place instead of fourth place then I would have understood it.

Andy, I appreciate your clarification and congratulations to Billy Benz on his third place finish.

Actually they did wrestle once at the SM South tournament when Jacob was a freshman at Aquinas and Matt was a sophomore at SM East. I am pretty sure Jacob won that match something like 6-5 in overtime. After that match I was told that Matt was only in his second year of wrestling that year. It was obvious to me though that Matt was very athletic and had a lot of potential in wrestling. Matt quickly improved during that year. He was becoming a very good wrestler by the end of that sophomore year. I believe he won the 6A regional that year against some pretty tough competition. Matt is one of those good athletes who did not start wrestling until high school but with hard work has become an excellent wrestler.

Good to hear that there is positive feedback regarding upstart Baker program!

Vince & Andy -

Thanks for the kind words. Jacob did win 8-9 over Matt in double OT January 2006 at the SMS tournament. I remember it was an exciting match.

One thing that really helped Matt improve in wrestling was the extra mat time he was able to get through the Kids program at the end of each high school season. Because of his October birthday, he was able to wrestle Kids for 3 of his high school years. I don't mean only the state tournament, but all the tournaments leading up to state. This is why I support keeping the high school ages in Kids wrestling. In some areas of Kansas, high school is the first introduction to wrestling and those athletes need extra folkstyle mat time.

Lou Ann Baker