Freshman Jake Strausbaugh scored an opening round victory at 141 pounds at the 2010 NCAA Division III Wrestling National Championship Tournament Friday afternoon. An 8-2 loss to the top seed in the weight class sent the Wabash rookie to the consolation bracket. Senior Michael Burke lost a heartbreaking 6-5 match at 197 pounds to also move into the consolation bracket.
Strausbaugh started with a convincing 11-6 win in the first round over Sam Delpra of Heidelberg. The victory moved Strausbaugh into a second-round bout against top-seeded Myanganbayar Batsukh from St. John's. Batsukh scored an 8-2 victory to move forward to the championship semifinals. Strausbaugh, the eighth seed in the tourney at 141 pounds, will face seventh-seeded Kevin Donohue from Cornell Saturday morning. The winner is guaranteed to finish no worse than eighth in the weight class and would earn All-America honors.
Burke's one-point loss came in the opening round of his 197-pound weight class against fourth-seeded Troy Carlson from the University of Chicago. Burke's Wabash career came to an end in the next round with an 8-5 loss to Adam Latella from Wisconsin-Whitewater.