“You always want to end a tournament with an odd number next to your name.”
-Greg Strobel-Former Lehigh Coach, Olympic Coach, Mentor
In the final round of any tournament during my college career my coach at Lehigh, Greg Strobel, would always tell us that you want to end with an odd number next to your name. A simple reminder that you want to end on a good note. If there is an odd number next to your name, you finished the tournament with a win, and you walk away feeling a lot better than ending with a loss.
The performance of Stanford at the 2025 Midlands would have made Coach Strobel proud.
Out of the 10 individuals that placed, 7 ended with an odd number next to their name as the team had a strong final round, one that led to a team championship for Stanford, the first in school history (Coaches note: we really should have had 8, as there was a pretty terrible call in Colin Guffey’s 7th place match. As you can probably infer I’m not quite over it).
I would like to add to Coach Strobel’s quote that “letters” are possibly the best thing to have after your name at the end of a tournament. Letters like “O” and “W” are often the best. Tyler Knox took care of that at Midlands, winning the Outstanding Wrestler award (best wrestler at the tournament as voted on by the coaches). Let’s have a look at that…
Tyler Knox, 1st place, OW, 133
Yep, looks pretty damn good.
Tyler had a masterful tournament and was fairly dominant until the finals, where he met returning All-American Dylan Shawver of Rutgers. It was a great match and somehow Shawver was able to corral the wild style of Tyler. With about 20 seconds left in the match the score was 3 to 3. Shawver was technically up by 1 with 1:04 of riding time. On a re-start in neutral, Tyler let a beautiful low single go and was able to convert the takedown plus some back points. I tend to agree with the rest of the coaches who voted for him as the outstanding wrestler.
“O” and “W” are some common letters that follow a name after a tournament and we generally know what this stands for, but the lesser known award, “Champion of the Champions,” is pretty special. This award goes to the best wrestler in the finals as voted by the CHAMPIONS of the tournament. Lorenzo Norman, took this award for Stanford after one of the most dominant overall performances in the tournament, which culminated with a decisive victory over the 5th or so (there are so many rankings these days) ranked wrestler in the country. I don’t think I have seen the acronym “COC” for Champion of Champions, so I think one would have to write the whole thing out after the wrestler’s name.
Lorenzo Norman, 1st, Champion of Champions, 174
While a little long and less authoritative than the numbers and letters after Tyler’s name, they are no less impressive. The scores of Lorenzo’s matches add up to….an utterly dominant performance in a tough field. Also, with the win in the finals Lorenzo was able to avenge a loss from last year which is a good sign of the progress and evolution of his wrestling.
A slight Ayres modification to the Strobel quote would be: “You always want to end a tournament with an odd number next to your name, but damn it, make that number a “1” and add some letters if you want to feel great about your performance.” Tyler and Lorenzo did just that and should feel great about their performances.
(As a side note, how is it determined what group of words get an acronym and which don’t? If you ever worked at Stanford you know they just use an acronym for every group of words that they can and quite frankly I’m having a hard time keeping up. Sometimes it just makes sense to write all the words out.)
If you are keeping count, that is a clean sweep of the “extra stuff” you can win at a tournament for Stanford: Team Champions, OW, and Champion of Champions.
AND, we have another incredible finals match to unpack.
Jaden Abas, 1st
Interestingly, the announcer kept announcing his name Ah-Boss and no one cared to correct her because he was wrestling like “a boss”. I give her credit for her consistency throughout the tournament as she never veered from “a boss.”
When Jaden Abas wrestles it is usually “pretty”, like a dance. He attacks with slickness and speed, and once engaged there is rolling around and a flow that is beautiful to watch; like two dancers engaging in their craft, but usually, much to his opponents demise, Jaden is leading the dance.
At Midlands Jaden was not only pretty…he was Gritty. Pretty and Gritty ™. He had a toughness in his wrestling that I haven’t seen from him since I arrived last fall and watching his evolution and his ability to add “layers” to his wrestling has been fun. If Jaden leans into the “gritty” through the rest of the season it will be near impossible for his opponents to stop him.
Now for the rest of the odd numbered Wrestlers:
Hunter Garvin 3rd 165
Peter Ming 5th 285
Grigor Cholakyan 7th 157
Brook Byers 7th 197
Hunter had a good run, but I know he isn’t happy with third place. What’s great about Hunter is he is always trying to improve and has a willingness to try new things in competition. It will pay dividends in the long run, but can hurt in the short term. He has been working hard on getting better on top and he invested a lot of time working there this tournament, but that took him a little out of his game on his feet. A season is a “process” for Hunter and with each week he will continue to get better.
The big Pete is back! After dabbling with 197 in the first portion of the season, Peter has moved to the right weight and should be a solid finisher for us. Tactics and strategies are key at Heavyweight, and we will focus here with Pete for the remainder of the season…as well as gaining some weight!. A solid performance for Pete.
Grigor had a rollercoaster of a tournament, and after learning a very hard lesson in the quarters (never hang on to a lead in the third period!), he was able to rebound and take 7th place. Grigor tends to win big when he wins, so managing the closer matches will be something he gets better at as he gets more matches.
Similar to Ming, Brook thought that wrestling at a lower weight would be his best move this season, but performing well there was a challenge. Brook looked great at 197, picked up some great wins, and I think this tournament will propel his confidence into the second ½ of the season. Midlands was a great launching point for Brook wrestling 197
Now for the “even” guys…
Jason Miranda 4th 141
Nick Stemmet 4th 197
Colin Guffey 8th 174
Ok, so now I’m questioning Coach Strobel’s quote a little bit as I would much rather have a wrestler place 4th as opposed to 7th. The team point difference between 7th and 4th place is 5 team points and considering a win in the championship bracket is worth 1 point, I would much rather a wrestler finish fourth than having an odd number next to their name. Maybe as a wrestler you want to finish with an odd number next to your name to end on that positive note, but as a coach you want a wrestler to place as high as possible!
Miranda is back and better than ever. He went 6-2 in the tournament with 3 major decisions, 2 pins, and 1 tech…major points for the team! In fact his point total of 21 earned team points almost met some of our champions point totals! It was a good weekend for Jason and that should propel him into the national rankings.
Really, Nick just had one bad match where things unraveled a bit in the ¼ finals, but I’m proud of the way he battled back. It would have been easy for Nick to be upset he couldn’t win the tournament, and not bounce back on the backside of the bracket, but he wrestled hard and earned a lot of points for the team. A mature performance from Nick.
If freshman Collin Guffey didn’t get hosed in his final match he would have ended with an odd number next to his name (still not over it). I feel Collin improved a lot from his last performance at the Bakersfield and Midlands was a big step in his development. Collin has been diligent in the room and his hard work is paying off.
Overall, it was a very productive tournament for the team. It was awesome to win the tournament, but more importantly, Midlands served as a final dry run to the NCAA championships and we learned what we need to work on through the rest of the season. We had a disastrous 2nd session on day 1 where we went 8-7, and as I told the team in the meeting after that session, the coaches have to do a better job ensuring they are ready after a break in the tournament. We will address this issue. Also, some of our guys did a poor job managing and building on leads in the third period, so a lot of focus will go to that area.
Soldier Salute
Daniel Cardenas, 1st
While we were competing at Midlands Daniel Cardenas was wrestling unattached at the Soldier Salute in Iowa. While I wasn’t there to watch him wrestle, I know he wrestled tough and aggressively and worked to score a lot of points. He was great in all positions and controlled his opponents to a first place finish. As a coach it is awesome to know exactly how an athlete will compete each time and that is what we get with Daniel. He is the “brand” of the program and brings the style of wrestling we want from all our wrestlers and is consistently expressing that “brand” when he competes. Fortunately, that brand is starting to show in others. Lorenzo, Abas, and Knox are starting to embrace this brand and make it their own!!
Up next:
Pitt at Pitt: Friday, January 10, 4:00 PM PT
Missouri at Missouri, January 12, 12:00 PM PT
HELP US PACK THE STANDS – Maples Pavilion
1/19 Arizona State at 3:00pm
1/26 Virginia at 3:00pm
2/7 Virginia Tech at 7:00pm
2/21 UNC at 7:00pm
Midlands 2024
Team 1st
133- Tyler Knox 1st OW
141- Jason Miranda 4th
149- Jaden Abas 1st
157- Grigor Cholakyan 7th
165- Hunter Garvin 3rd
174- Lorenzo Norman 1st Champion of Champions
174- Colin Guffey 8th
197- Nick Stemmet 4th
197- Brook Byers 7th
285- Peter Ming 5th
