Wabash senior Keith Garrard won the 197-pound weight class at Saturday's NCAA Division III Midwest Regional held at Manchester College. The victory will send Garrard to the NCAA National Championship meet scheduled for March 2-3 in Dubuque, Iowa.
Garrard came into Saturday's competition as the number two seed in his weight class. He quickly dispatched the number seven seed, Joe West from eventual team champion Delaware Valley College, pinning West 1:13 into their match. Garrard made it two pins in a row in the semifinals, sticking Lycoming's Matthew Miller at the 4:43 mark of their bout.
That put Garrard up against top-seeded Tim Kelly from Mount St. Joseph. The two battled for three periods before the Wabash senior came out with a 4-3 victory to earn a berth at Nationals.
The Little Giants had hoped to send more than just one wrestler to the final tournament this season. Senior Garrett Pino, a national qualifier last year at 141 pounds, won his opening match by pin at 1:27 against Waynesburg's Abdul Yusuff. But Pino lost 12-7 to fifth-seeded Damian Rose from Thiel in the next round, dropping the senior to the consolation bracket. Pino scored another pin, this time at the 2:39 mark against Nathan Kleckler from MacMurray. But the day came to an end in the next round when eighth-seeded Matt Palladino from Manchester defeated Pino 5-2.
Senior Will Clarke just missed his chance to head to the Nationals. Entering the tournament as the number one seed, he quickly scored a pin at 1:07 in his first match of the 184-pound weight class bracket. He followed with a major decision against eighth-seeded Tretn Zempel from Messiah in round two, but lost a 2-1 contest against fourth-seeded Daron Cruickshank from Olivet in the semfinals. Clarke rallied for two wins to take third in the consolation bracket, then scored a win in the true second wrestle-off at the end of the day to complete his day.