March 19, 2009
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ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Phillip Keddy is moving on, even though he’s disappointed that he was holding on during the end of a 7-2 victory against unseeded Patrick Flynn of Oklahoma in the second round of the NCAA wrestling tournament this evening in the Scottrade Center.
Keddy opened the day by pinning Mickey Moran of Buffalo in 2-minutes, 28-seconds. He followed that with a five-point victory against Flynn, sending him to Friday’s quarterfinal against No. 7-seeded Doug Umbehauer of Rider at 184 pounds.
“My first match was good, I got the fall,” Keddy said. “The last one…not too good, I held on too much and let him squeeze me. I easily could have gotten a major and I didn’t. That’s important to the team, so I have to come back tomorrow and improve from that last match.”
Keddy is one of six Hawkeyes in the quarterfinals. Iowa and Iowa State are tied in the team standings with 33 points.
“There are some guys wrestling well and there are some matches we feel we should have had,” Keddy said. “We feel real good about (Chad) Beatty and (Alex) Tsirtsis. They have to wrestle all the way back and get third. (Charlie) Falck is tough. I know he’ll come back and wrestle hard. As a team we have to go out there and perform like we know we can.”
UI head coach Tom Brands said there is no comfort level, even though all nine Hawkeye wrestlers are still alive — six in the championship bracket and three in consolations.
“We’re doing some good things. When we wrestle our match, good things happen,” Brands said. “We have to go back to work (Friday) — come back strong one match at a time. There’s a lot of wrestling left and a lot of points left and a lot of individual matches left. The points are too close now and there are a lot of points out there to score.”
Iowa, the defending national champion, has won 21 NCAA titles.