A Great Grinaker Gathering

MOORHEAD, Minn.  (11/16/13)— Concordia hosted the annual Finn Grinaker Cobber Open on Saturday and somewhere the old Cobber wrestling coach has an ear-to-ear grin as CC continues to impress in the early portion of their 2013-14 schedule.

The Cobbers opened the year by putting up multiple top 5 finishes at last weekend's NDSU Bison Open. CC then beat NCAA Division II foe Southwest Minnesota State in the first dual meet of the year in the middle of the week. Concordia stayed on top of their game by producing top 5 finishes in eight of the 10 weight classes and coming away with 13 total top 5 finishers.


WDAY-TV Video Recap Of Cobber Open



The day belonged to junior Chris Harrison who earned his first collegiate multi-team invitational championship. Harrison posted a 4-0 record for the meet and won the 184-lb weight class. He scored wins over opponents from MSU Moorhead, Northern Iowa and Southwest MN State on his way to the title.

Harrison's teammate Brandon Larson helped make the 184-lb weight class the tops for Matt Nagel's crew. Larson had a team-high five wins on the day and finished in third place in the weight class.

Seniors Cody Kasprick and Kyle LeDuc continue to steamroll their competitors as they carry out their quest for the national meet. Kasprick went 4-1 at 285 and placed third. His two biggest wins of the day came in the wrestlebacks when he earned a 3-1 win over a DI wrestler from Northern Iowa and capped his day by exacting revenge against Cole Wilson from Southwest MN State. Wilson edged Kasprick 3-2 in the dual meet on Wednesday but Kasprick did him one better by earning a 2-0 decision in the third-place match. LeDuc went 3-1 for the meet and grabbed second place at 157. His only loss came against Jarrett Jensen of Northern Iowa who has 42 wins in two years of competition at the DI level. LeDuc now has a team-high nine wins and is 9-2 on the year.

Jake Long was the other Cobber to finish in the top 3 of a weight class. He was 3-1 at 149 and won the third-place match over Tanner Hiatt from Northern Iowa.

Jonas Gebreab and Sebastian Gardner staked claim to fourth-place finishes and Will McCarthy, Gabe Foltz and Ben Cousins were fifth in their weight class. Gebreab had the longest winning streak of the day as he put together four wins after dropping his first-round match and was fourth at 141 with a 4-2 record. Gardner went 2-2 at 174. McCarthy and Foltz shared fifth place at 125 with identical 3-2 records and Jacoby Bergeron was 3-2 at 133 and was also fifth.

The "eye-opening, jaw-dropping" result of the meet was turned in by sophomore Cousins. Diagnosed with autism at the age of 2, Cousins recorded his first collegiate top 5 finish by going 3-2 at 157. He won a 4-3 decision over Grant Nehring of NDSU in the first round and then recorded a major decision in the quarterfinals. Cousins lost to weight-class champion Jensen in the semifinals and then went 1-1 in the wrestlebacks to claim fifth place. He edged Joseph Carpenter 3-2 in a dramatic fifth-place bout.

Concordia had three wrestlers post top 5 finishes in the maroon division which was exclusively for freshmen or first-year wrestlers. Jackson Barber won the title at 174 by going 4-0 while A.J. Wheeler was third at 197 and teammate Tim Wychor earned the fourth-place spot at the same weight class.

Concordia will head back to dual action when they host the home opener on Wednesday, Nov. 20 at 7 p.m. against St. Olaf.