University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
NCAA Championships
Tar Heels' Season Ends at NCAA Championships
March 19, 2010 | Wrestling
March 19, 2010
OMAHA, NEB. - North Carolina junior 157-pounder Thomas Scotton, the lone Tar Heel who was in action Friday at the NCAA Championships in Omaha, Neb., dropped his only match Friday afternoon to close the Tar Heels' season. Scotton finishes the tournament 1-2 and the season 28-10. Scotton joined two Carolina wrestlers in the championships. 197-pound senior Dennis Drury and redshirt freshman heavyweight Ziad Haddad both dropped a pair of matches in Thursday action. As a team, North Carolina finished tied for 49th with four points.
Scotton saw his season end Friday afternoon in a 6-2 defeat against Arizona State's Tejovan Edwards. The Tar Heel junior recorded the first takedown en route to taking a 2-1 lead after one period. Edwards took the lead for good in the second with a reversal. Trailing 3-2, Scotton chose neutral in the third, but Edwards took him down and added a point with riding time for the final.
Scotton worked his way into Friday's action by splitting his two Thursday matches. In his afternoon opener, he was victorious when former NCAA champion and sixth-seeded Dustin Schlatter of Minnesota was forced to default due to injury in the first period. The two had exchanged shots without either wrestler recording any score throughout the period. Scotton was victorious when the three-time All-America at 149 pounds re-injured an already bad knee.
During the evening session Thursday, Scotton was defeated 3-1 by Binghamton's Justin Lister. Lister, ranked No. 16 by InterMat entering the tournament recorded the bout's only takedown in the first period, but Scotton escaped to make it 2-1 after a period. Lister added to the lead when he escaped in the second. In the third period, Scotton chose neutral but after failing on several attempts to notch a takedown, the junior dropped a 3-1 decision.
At 197 pounds, Drury, ranked No. 16 by InterMat, fell to eighth-seeded Sonny Yohn of Minnesota 7-1 Thursday morning. Yohn recorded takedowns in each of the three periods and an escape in the second while Drury's lone point came on a third-period escape. Drury's career ended in heartbreaking fashion during the night session against ninth-seeded Chad Beatty of Iowa. Drury trailed 3-0 after a second-period escape and takedown but brought the match back within two with an escape of his own. Another escape at the beginning of the third cut the deficit to one before Drury finally took down Beatty with less than 20 seconds remaining to grab a 4-3 lead. However, the Hawkeye struck back with a reversal in the waning seconds for the 5-4 win. Drury ends his season 24-11 and his career 85-43
At heavyweight, Haddad dropped a 7-3 decision to No. 8 Ryan Tomei of Pittsburgh in his opener. After a scoreless first period, Tomei struck first with an escape and a takedown in the second period. Haddad matched that effort, escaping and then registering a takedown of his own to tie it at three entering the third period. In the decisive third period, Tomei escaped Haddad to take the lead before logging an insurance takedown. Accumulation of riding time gave Tomei another point for the final score.
Haddad also dropped a tough decision Thursday evening to end his season. The redshirt freshman traded escapes with Kent State's Brendan Barlow in regulation and was tied 1-1. After neither wrestler scored in the first sudden-victory period, the two heavyweights once again traded escapes during the tiebreaker period. In the second sudden-victory period, Barlow recorded the match's first takedown to win 4-2. Haddad finishes his freshman season 17-11 overall and 13-8 as a Tar Heel since becoming eligible in December.
