Bockman in Quarter Finals at Cliff Keen Invitational

LAS VEGAS – No. 18 Evan Bockman advanced to the quarterfinals of the 41st Cliff Keen Invitational on Friday. The Wolverines worked through a tough first round that saw seven of their ten participants face ranked wrestlers before finishing 28th in the team score out of 35 teams.

Bockman cruised in the round of 32 with a tech fall win over Binghamton's Cayden Bevis. It wasn't so easy in the round of 16, where a third-period escape put him over the top of Nick Stemmet (Stanford) for a 4-3 decision. In the evening session, he lost in the quarterfinals to No. 5 Trent Hilday from NC State and took a sudden victory loss in the consolation rounds to Wyoming's Joey Novak to finish the day 2-2.

After falling in his round of 32 match to 12th seeded Isaac Wilcox (Ohio State), Jaxon Garoutte battled through the consolation rounds with a pair of victories, first with a major decision over Wyoming's Brett McIntosh before getting past Isaias Estrada (North Carolina) to put him in the round of eight consolation match. He was eliminated by No. 16 Maxx Mayfield (Northwestern) in this evening's consolation round by 8-2 decision.

At 174, Mark Takara kept his match close with No. 11 Travis Wittlake (Oregon State) before falling 8-7. He finished the tournament 1-2, including a tech fall victory in his second match over Owen Ayotte (Sacred Heart). No. 33 Jacob Armstrong picked up a first-round win over No. 24 Zayne Layman (Ohio), recording his first pin of the season. He would finish 1-2 on the day.

Freshman Jacob Carson and Isaiah Delgado followed similar paths, each finishing 1-2. Carson picked up his lone win in the consolation rounds with a 12-4 major decision over Ohio's Ryan Meek. He fell in his last match with a hard-fought 4-1 decision on a late takedown by Dominic Mendez (Cal Poly). Delgado picked up a win over Aideen Vandenbush (Northwestern) by an 8-2 decision before losing to Nash Singleton (Oregon State) by a narrow 9-8 decision.

Haiden Drury, James Emmer, Kyler Lake, and Jack Forbes all finished 0-2 in the tournament.

Utah Valley will compete on Dec. 17 at Reno Tournaments of Champions before going to No. 8 Iowa State on Jan. 12 and No. 14 Northern Iowa. The Wolverines host Wyoming in the home opener on Jan. 20 at 6:00 p.m. MT.