Army West Point Athletics
Army West Point
Southern Scuffle
Hanafee, Thome Place At Southern Scuffle
January 02, 2013 | Wrestling
Jan. 2, 2013
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - Senior Connor Hanafee placed fifth at 141 pounds and senior Jordan Thome finished eighth at 133 pounds to help the Army wrestling team to a 10th-place finish at the Southern Scuffle on Wednesday.
The Black Knights piled up 48 points to place within the top half of the 24-team field. Penn State won the team title as the Nittany Lions accumulated 178.5 points. Oklahoma State placed runner-up (158 points), followed by Missouri (147.5), Minnesota (139.5) and Cornell (136).
Hanafee, who won three straight bouts on Tuesday just to reach the tournament's second day, opened Wednesday's action by taking a 6-4 decision from Army junior Tyler Rauenzahn. Hanafee then slipped past Chattanooga's Dean Pavlou, 4-2, before falling to Old Dominion's Chris Mecate (2-0) and dropping into the fifth-place match. The Staten Island, N.Y., native rallied to beat Oklahoma State's Julian Feikert, 7-4, to take fifth. Hanafee finished the two-day event with a team-best mark of 7-2.
Thome, meanwhile, started the second day of competition by pinning Virginia's Joseph Martinez in 3 minutes, 47 seconds. The Troy, Ohio, native then dropped a 6-0 decision to Virginia's Zach Watson, before falling to Mark Grey (2-0) in the seventh-place bout.
Elsewhere, junior Paul Hancock suffered a 4-2 setback to Ohio's Harrison Hightower at 165 pounds, and junior John Belanger lost a 13-2 major decision versus Penn State's Luke Frey in the 149-pound draw.
Army will return to action Jan. 11-12, when the Black Knights travel to Hampton, Va., to compete at the Virginia Duals.
Players Mentioned
