FORT WORTH, Texas — The Cliff Keen Wrestling Club’s Adam Coon swept the best-of-three championship series to capture the 130kg/286-pound Greco-Roman title at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials on Saturday night (April 3) at Dickies Arena.
Coon, who claimed the 130kg Greco spot for the third straight year and was a 2018 world silver medalist, still needs to qualify the weight class for the United States. The final Olympic Games Qualifier is scheduled for May 6-9 in Sofia, Bulgaria, where the top-two finishers at each weight will qualify their country for the Tokyo Games.
He defeated Arizona State’s Cohlton Schultz, 10-1 and 3-3, in the championship series — his second straight trials win over the Sun Devils wrestler. Coon cruised in the first bout, earning a big first-period lead off a Schultz passivity and two gut wrenches. He was also hit for passivity himself in the second but gave up no points when put down and followed with a bodylock for a takedown and subsequent caution.
Coon, a three-time NCAA All-American at Michigan (2014-16, ’18), had to rally in the second match. After giving up a passivity and exposure — with a quick reversal — Coon took his first lead with another takedown off a bodylock midway through the second and held on for the win.
Mason Parris also made his first U.S. Senior National Team with a third-place finish in the 125kg/275-pound freestyle division. After dropping his first bout of the challenge tournament Friday (April 2), Parris bounced back with three straight consolation wins, including a 6-3 decision over former Minnesota great Tony Nelson, a two-time NCAA champion, in the third-place bout. Parris had six points taken off the board in the first period — a takedown and two guts — and a penalty point was given to Nelson for a singlet grab, but Parris came back with three takedowns, including a late single leg to ice it.
Parris, a 2019 junior champion, also defeated Tanner Hall, 10-0, and Dom Bradley, 7-4, in consolation action. He won a nail-biter in the latter match after trading four-point throws in the first period and was trailing on criteria at the break when he scored on a pair of stepouts, including one with just two seconds remaining, and tacked on an extra point for a lost challenge.
Logan Massa also bounced back in the consolation bracket, defeating Chance Marsteller, 9-4, in the consolation semifinals before falling to Wisconsin’s Evan Wick, 13-9, in a wild match for third place at 74kg/163 pounds. Massa overcame an early four-point arm throw in the Marsteller match, scoring six unanswered points, including a pair of takedowns in the second. He found himself in a similar situation after giving up a pair of takedowns late in the first period against Wick and despite scoring seven points in the second, he couldn’t overcome the deficit.
Michigan already has a pair of Tokyo Olympians in Stevan Micic and Myles Amine, who qualified at 57kg/125 pounds and 86kg/189 pounds, respectively, with their fifth-place finishes at the 2019 World Championships. Micic represents Serbia internationally, while Amine wrestles for San Marino. They are both the first ever freestyle wrestlers from those countries to qualify for the Olympic Games.
