Two wrestlers clinched spots in the 2025 NCAA Championships with podium finishes as Northwestern hosted its first Big Ten Championships since 2011, but performances elsewhere in the rotation left coach Matt Storniolo wanting more.
Redshirt senior 165-pounder Maxx Mayfield finished sixth and redshirt junior 197-pounder Evan Bates finished seventh en route to a 12th-place team finish — a significant improvement from last place in 2024. Storniolo said it was difficult to be anything but disappointed with the weekend’s results.
The ninth-year head coach said he expected at least four Wildcat (4-7, 2-6 Big Ten) wrestlers to compete on the national stage and hoped for even more, but the team came up short. Mayfield and Bates clinched automatic qualification spots, and Storniolo said he “would bet all (his) lunch money” that graduate student 157-pounder Trevor Chumbley will get an at-large bid.
“We had the potential to do more,” he said. “They’re a great group of guys, and I love every one of them. I wish they would’ve had a better weekend. … But we expect better, and I know they expected a better result themselves.”
Redshirt freshman 149-pounder Sam Cartella, Chumbley and Bates all won favored first-round bouts while redshirt freshman 125-pounder Dedrick Navarro pulled off a 3-2 upset over Ohio State’s tournament No. 7 seed Brendan McCrone.
None of the four NU quarterfinalists were favored in their quarterfinal bouts, and all of them lost.
“The second round [championship quarterfinal] at this tournament is always going to be a buzzsaw if you are not seeded in the top four or five,” Storniolo said. “You expect some tougher matches in that second round, but I thought we were in a good position going into those blood round matches to get five or six guys on the podium.”
The consolation bracket’s second round is nicknamed the ‘blood round’ because winners are guaranteed a top-eight finish — and in the Big Ten Championships, they’re guaranteed a trip to the national championships in nine of ten weight classes.
Sophomore 133-pounder Massey Odiotti and graduate student 184-pounder Jon Halvorsen joined the four losing quarterfinalists for NU as winners in the first consolation round, while Mayfield and graduate student 141-pounder Chris Cannon lost in the first round but received byes to the blood round because of the 14-team format.
Mayfield wore out Rutgers No. 10 seed Anthony White in a 5-1 victory before Bates made easy work of Maryland No. 12 seed Chase Mielnik in a technical fall win, sealing both of their spots in Philadelphia.
Cannon likely ended his college wrestling career defending a precarious 5-4 lead that evaporated as Purdue’s Greyson Clark took him down with just 15 seconds left.
Along with Bates and Mayfield, tournament No. 7 seeds Cartella and Chumbley were also expected to punch their tickets Saturday afternoon as they drew two No. 9-seeded Michigan wrestlers, both of whom they beat earlier this season.
The NU duo took on the Wolverine pair at the same time and lost by identical scores. A knee injury early in Navarro’s blood round bout slowed him down for the rest of the weekend, a crushing blow for a lightning-quick 125-pounder.
Neither No. 11 seed Halvorsen nor No. 12 seed Odiotti could overcome tough matchups against fifth-place finisher Gabe Arnold of Iowa or eighth-place finisher Jacob van Dee of Nebraska.
“There’s not a tougher tournament out there than the Big Ten tournament,” Storniolo said. “Talent doesn’t win matches here at this tournament. It’s grit, it’s determination and it’s fight…and we didn’t capitalize on some of the opportunities we had.”
Mayfield produced the highlight of the ’Cats’ weekend with an 8-1 win over Nebraska’s No. 3 seed Christopher Minto, punctuated by an emphatic takedown in the final moments
“It really doesn’t matter what your record is, what your seed is, anything happens,” Mayfield said. “It’s being gritty that wins those matches, and I knew if I just held a good position, (I could) get to a takedown.”
Bates wrestled a tense bout against another Cornhusker, No. 7 seed Camden McDanel, that knotted at 2-2 before Bates found himself on the wrong end of a last-minute takedown. His would-be seventh-place opponent, Ohio State’s Seth Shumate, medically forfeited.
Thought to be guaranteed a third-or-fifth-place match in the championship session Sunday evening, Mayfield said he tweaked his right ankle late in his consolation semifinal that afternoon, forcing him to forfeit the match and his fifth-place bout.
The 165-pounder said he didn’t think it would be an issue before the national championships in two weeks.
“I was down late in the match and went for a throw at the end,” he said. “My ankle wanted to go the opposite way that I wanted it to go.”
Mayfield retains one more year of eligibility and said he would make a decision on whether he would continue his college career after the national championships.
Storniolo said wrestling for NU has meant the world to the team’s seniors, even if some didn’t get the results they wanted.
“They want to expect more from those younger guys than they’ve expected from themselves,” he said. “They want to see those guys not just carry the torch, but take it to a new height.”
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