The First College Wrestling of the Year for former South
                    Carolina Stars


This past weekend saw some college wrestling action for many former South Carolina wrestling stars. The Citadel wrestling team traveled to Lexington, VA to wrestle in the Keydet Invitational Wrestling Tournament at the Virginia Military Institute. The Citadel Bulldogs claimed championships at 3 weights and finished runner-up at 3 others. It was an outstanding day for the bulldogs and a young group of talented wrestlers made big statements in their first college action.

 The Citadel was lead by Ryan McClester from Lugoff High School who was the individual champ at 125lbs beating out one of his own teammates, Brad Ragan, in the final. Brad pulled off a huge upset over Brian Sticca of Virginia. Sticca was a 2002 PA State runner-up from Greensburg Salem High School in PA who wrestled a tremendous final match going into overtime but eventually losing to Matt Ciusialli of Easton PA. Next at 133lbs 2002 S.C. state champ Mauro Bria from Hilton Head high school went 1-2 on the day. Ivan Enriquez a redshirt freshman for The Citadel was 2-1 on the day and finished in 3rd at 133lbs. At 141lbs Nolan Roggancamp from the state of Washington was a runner-up at 141 losing in the tiebreaker period 3-2. Vince Bartges from Stratford high school was the runner-up at 149 losing in the tiebreaker period 4-3. Also at 149 for the Bulldogs was former Spring Valley standout Derek Nietz who was 0-2 in his first career college wrestling tournament and redshirt freshmen from Nebraska Ty Christensen was 2-2 at the tournament.
At 157lbs Travis Piccard, an outstanding true freshmen from Michigan, won the tournament championships winning all three of his bouts. Look for big things from this wrestler the next few years. At 165 Junior James Rose was 2-2 in the tournament and finished in 4th place at the tournament. The final champ for the Bulldogs Sunday was John Dickerson who is another talented true freshmen from Michigan. John won all three of his matches winning the 184lbs championship.  Also at 184 a former Chesnee high school standout Brent Blackwell from Gardner Webb University was 0-2 on the day. Rounding out the tournament was Troy Bartges wrestling down a weight class from the previous two years at 197. Troy is a former wrestler from Stratford and brother of 149lbs Vince was 2-1 at the tournament placing 3rd. 

This tournament was a good warm-up for The Citadel and many of The Citadels top returning wrestlers did not compete. This tournament is for mainly freshmen and sophomores and others on varsity teams with only a year of varsity competition under their belt. The Citadel will be cranking up the wrestling season next weekend at the West Virginia Open in Morgantown and this weekend will be having their first wrestle off and the Blue/White Match in Vandiver Hall.

Anderson College kicked off their season off this weekend in Pensacola, Florida at the Pensacola Christian Open. Anderson College was led by Geary Braun, the 141lbs PC Open champ and Former Mr. South Carolina, Careef Robertson who won all four of his bouts to claim the 174lbs PC Open. Anderson also had 2 other placers Kurt Ball at 157 and Terrell Scott at Heavyweight. Anderson will be back in action two weeks from now, the 15 and 16th of November at the UNC Pembroke Open.