Six Iowa men’s wrestlers qualify for Big Ten Championship Semifinals
Austin DeSanto, Jaydin Eierman, Max Murin, Alex Marinelli, Michael Kemerer, and Tony Cassioppi will all wrestle for a spot in Sunday’s conference finals.
Iowa’s No. 4 Max Murin celebrates his win against Northwestern’s No. 5 Yahya Thomas during session one of the Big Ten Wrestling Championships at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Neb., on Saturday, March 5, 2022. Murin defeated Thomas in the 149-pound weight class, 6-5.
March 5, 2022
LINCOLN, Neb. — Ten Iowa men’s wrestlers qualified for the 2022 Big Ten Championship Quarterfinals at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska, Saturday. Only six Hawkeyes made the tournament semifinals.
Senior 133-pounder Austin DeSanto, 141-pounder Jaydin Eierman, 165-pounder Alex Marinelli, and heavyweight Tony Cassioppi all received first-round byes. So, they only had to win one match to make the semifinals.
DeSanto defeated Northwestern’s Chris Cannon, 141-pounder Jaydin Eierman beat Dylan D’Emilio of Ohio State, and 165-pounder Alex Marinelli extinguished Penn State’s Creighton Edsell.
Seniors Michael Kemerer and Max Murin also qualified for the semifinals. Murin beat Northwestern’s Yahya Thomas and Kemerer downed Ohio State’s Ethan Smith.
No. 2 DeSanto will take on third-seeded Lucas Byrd of Illinois in the semifinals. DeSanto is 2-0 all-time against Byrd.
No. 2 Eierman will face Rutgers’ No. 3 Sebastian Rivera. The two have never wrestled against each other.
No. 4 Murin will battle No. 1 Sammy Sasso of Ohio State. Murin is 0-2 all-time against Sasso. Murin, however, took Sasso to the brink when they met in a regular season dual on Jan. 21. Sasso defeated Murin by a narrow, 3-2, margin at the Covelli Center in Columbus.
No. 2 Marinelli has No. 3 Dean Hamiti of Wisconsin up next. Marinelli beat Hamiti, 8-5, in their only matchup earlier this year.
No. 4 Kemerer will face Penn State’s No. 1 Carter Starocci. Kemerer and Starocci have one of the best rivalries in college wrestling. Kemerer is 1-2 all-time against Starocci.
Kemerer got the better of Starocci at last season’s Big Ten Championship Finals. Then, Starocci beat Kemerer in the NCAA Finals a few weeks later.
Most recently, Starocci beat Kemerer, 2-1, in a Jan. 28 dual at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City. The Nittany Lions won that dual, 19-13.
No. 2 Cassioppi will face No .3 Greg Kerkvliet of Penn State. Cassioppi is 2-0 against Kerkvliet on his career.
DeSanto and Eierman each reached the finals of last season’s Big Ten Championships. Murin has never made it past the first round.
Marinelli is trying for his fourth straight Big Ten title, Kemerer is trying to repeat as champion, and Cassioppi lost in the Big Ten Championship Semifinals a year ago.
Iowa is currently third in the team standings with 55.0 points, sitting behind Penn State’s 67.5 and Michigan’s 68.5.
“You have to put the fear of what you do really well into your opponent, and that means we have to pick up our pace,” Iowa head coach Tom Brands said via release after the opening session. “We have to pick up our pace and put guys under fire. There is a lot of wrestling left to go.”
Michigan and Penn State each qualified seven wrestlers for the semifinals.
