The Fighting Illini wrestling team finished sixth at the Big Ten Championships held at the Bryce Jordan Center in University Park, Pennsylvania. Kannon Webster, seeded third at 157 pounds, secured a bronze medal after defeating Ohio State’s Brandon Cannon by a 9-2 decision in the third-place match. Prior to this, Webster advanced to the bronze medal bout with a win by injury default over Indiana’s Bryce Lowery in the consolation semifinals. This marks Webster’s second consecutive year medaling at the Big Ten Championships; he previously earned silver at 149 pounds.
Head coach Jeremy Hunter commented on his team’s performance: “The guys wrestled tough. They won a lot of tough matches throughout the tournament. There’s a lot of things that we can look back to improve upon and make the changes for the next weekend. That’s what everybody’s looking forward to is the NCAA Championships.”
Spencer Moore qualified for the NCAA Championships at 125 pounds by winning the ninth-place bracket and securing an automatic bid in his weight class. Moore defeated Northwestern’s Dedrick Navarro 9-1 and Wisconsin’s Nicolar Rivera 16-5 to finish ninth overall, marking his second straight season qualifying for nationals.
Illinois will send eight wrestlers to the NCAA Championships for a second consecutive season, which is their first time achieving this back-to-back since 2014-15.
Other notable finishes include Lucas Byrd taking fifth place at 133 pounds after avenging an earlier loss to Purdue’s Blake Boarman with a 5-2 victory in their final match. Byrd has now placed among the top five in all five of his Big Ten Championship appearances.
Freshman Colin Kelly placed seventh at 174 pounds, beating Purdue’s Brody Baumann twice during the tournament—including an 11-5 decision in their final matchup.
Chris Moore finished fourth at 184 pounds after advancing via medical forfeits but losing in sudden victory to Michigan’s Brock Mantanona in his last match. Michael Gioffre took sixth place at 149 pounds following losses to Michigan’s Lachlan McNeil and Wisconsin’s Joseph Zargo.
At other weights, Braeden Scoles (165) and Luke Luffman (285) both finished eighth after medically forfeiting or losing their seventh-place matches.
Penn State won the team title with 184 points, followed by Ohio State (148.5), Nebraska (116.5), Iowa (87), Michigan (86.5), and Illinois (78).
The eight Illinois national qualifiers will have one week off before competing at the NCAA Championships scheduled for March 19-21 in Cleveland at Rocket Arena.
