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Iowa and Iowa State both have 4 All-Americans at NCAA Wrestling Championships
Iowa’s Michael Caliendo takes 4th on Saturday
Mike Finn
Mar. 23, 2024 3:17 pm, Updated: Mar. 23, 2024 3:57 pm
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Except for the 20 wrestlers who were scheduled to compete in Saturday night’s finals of the 2024 NCAA Division I Championships, the earlier session — called the All-America Round — provided one more chance for the 60 other All-Americans to see how high they would step on the podium once the finals are done later that evening.
That was the case Saturday morning when three Iowa wrestlers and three Iowa State wrestlers placed between third and eighth place in their weight classes. The Hawkeyes included senior Real Woods (fifth at 141), graduate Jared Franek (eighth at 157) and sophomore Michael Caliendo (fourth at 165). The Cyclones saw freshman Evan Frost claim sixth at 133, junior Anthony Echemendia finish fifth at 141 and Casey Swiderski settle for seventh at 149.
They will be joined in All-America listings by teammates Iowa’s Drake Ayala (125) and Iowa State’s David Carr (165), who are set to wrestle for championships on Saturday night, as is Northern Iowa’s Parker Keckeisen (184). The Panther senior was UNI’s only All-American this year.
The early session also gave wrestlers and coaches one last chance to express their emotions — sometimes joyful, sometimes sad — before they finally say goodbye to what is the grind of an NCAA college season and career.
All these athletes have plenty of stories about college wrestling journeys that just began or may have started over five years ago.
That was the three Hawkeyes, who actually earned All-America honors at other schools before transferring to Iowa City.
Woods, a native of Albuquerque, N.M., who attended high school at Montini Catholic in Illinois, spent his first three years in college at Stanford, where he placed sixth nationally before transferring to Iowa in 2023. He claimed second place a year ago.
“I would say that I am grateful for my experiences and lessons that I’ve learned and people I’ve met along the way” said Woods, who ended his college career with an 85-14 mark and 43-6 as a Hawkeye.
Among the most notable new people in his life the past two years are Iowa’s head coach Tom Brands and Terry Brands, the associate head coach, who actually recruited Woods out of high school to attend Iowa before he eventually chose Stanford.
“(The Brandses) are high-level thinkers and I connect really well with high-level thinkers and people who put a lot of passion into what they do,” said the 24-year-old Woods. “They are some of the more passionate critical analytic people who I’ve ever met and it is admiring.”
Franek and Caliendo meanwhile came to Iowa after each became All-Americans at North Dakota State before arriving in Iowa City last summer.
While the two will be separated by college eligibility next season, Caliendo said the two will always be linked.
“He’s like family,” said Caliendo, a native of Geneva, Ill. (Franek hails from Harwood, N.D.) “His parents and my parents are always together. They were the only people they knew when we came to Iowa. We are super tight.”
Speaking of family, Iowa State’s Echemendia, a native of Cuba, has not seen his family in person for over six years as he first spent time at Ohio State for three years before taking a redshirt season in Ames a year ago.
Fortunately, today’s Zoom and Facetime technology allows him to speak and see each other online. For now, he also focuses on his Cyclone teammates, including heavyweight Yonger Bastida, also a native of Cuba, who failed to place this weekend as a No. 2 seed.
“I’m hurting right now because Yonger did not place,” said Echemendia, who actually lost a consolation semifinal to Iowa’s Woods before earning a medical forfeit in the fifth-place match. “Five days before the tournament he broke his finger. It’s a tough tournament and if you don’t have your head straight, every (wrestler) is here to take a place home. Everyone wants to be an All-American. He wasn’t ready to go and he couldn’t do much with one hand.”
Echemendia also had a tough time in Columbus, Ohio, before he transferred to Iowa State, which also had recruited him several years ago.
Iowa State Coach Kevin Dresser was defensive about Echemendia, who has received some online criticism for his life’s choices from some outside the ISU community.
“There were people crucifying him on Twitter,” Dresser said. “You are talking about an A-No. 1 kid. It’s frustrating in this world that we live in. The better of a student athlete you are, the more of a target you are. I’m tired of these college kids who have been thrown under the bus.
“Everyone out there needs to let these kid be kids and let things play out.”
Dresser was also proud of the maturity that Swiderski showed in Kansas City, where he scored a 19-8 major decision against Rider’s Quinn Kinner in the seventh-place match.
“After coming to this tournament last year, I’ve learned a lot,” said Swiderski, who reached the quarterfinals on Friday but needed a 2-1 tiebreaker win against Ohio State’s Dylan D’Emilio in the Round of 12 later that day. Last year, the native of Dundee, Mich., went 3-2 and just missed All-America honors.
“I was the underdog big time last year when I made it to the blood round and came up short,” he said. “I learned a lot this year. We have the best coaches and I’m so glad I’m with those guys who instill the toughness, grittiness, and the pace that you need for this tough tournament. All I need for wrestling is at Iowa State.”