The Adrian College athletics teams continued to be one of few schools to still compete in winter sports during a COVID-19 season. Men’s and women’s wrestling opened its seasons hosting the first NCAA wrestling events of the season. Men’s hockey took on NCAA Division I Bowling Green State University, while ACHA Men’s D1 took on No. 2 ranked Liberty at home. Men’s basketball played an exhibition game on the road, and women’s hockey scrimmaged the Adrian College ACHA Women’s D1 team in a two-game weekend series.
MEN’S WRESTLING
The Adrian College wrestling team hosted a four team tournament in the annual Adrian Bulldogs Invitational. Adrian came away with the team win scoring 161 points to beat second place Thomas More who scored 134.5. The Bulldogs had three first place winners during the tournament with Zach Altman winning at 174, Derick Duvall winning at 165, and Isaiah Espinoza placing first at 285. In addition to the three winners, Adrian had five second place finishes, and had 32 wrestlers finnish in the top-8 at their weight class. Prior to this week, Adrian was ranked 19th by FloWrestling.
WOMEN’S WRESTLING
The Adrian College women’s wrestling team hosted the annual Adrian Women’s Open which resulted in the first NCAA women’s wrestling event of the 2020-21 season. The Bulldogs had 19 wrestlers finish top-5 in their weight classes and had four first place finishes. Modestie Hitchcock finished first at 101, Elisa Cox finished first at 136 with a 4-0 record, while Zoe Nowicki went 5-0 at 143 to finish first, and Taylor Cutler finished 4-0 at 155 to come away with a first place finish. Adrian went on to have five second place and third place finishers, along with three fourth place and fifth place finishes. The Bulldogs went on the win the tournament as a team by scoring 161 points.
MEN’S BASKETBALL
The Adrian College men’s basketball team traveled to Spring Arbor University to play in an exhibition game. The Bulldogs lost 75-58 on Saturday afternoon. Robert Warrick led the Bulldogs in scoring with 15 points followed by Nolan Ansara who finished with 14 points. Adrian shot 40.7% for the game with Spring Arbor shot 48%. The Bulldogs collected six blocks on the game to go with 31 rebounds. Connor Pelham made his first appearance of the season along with Delano Smith, and Dariyus Wooten while Gabe McDevitt made his first collegiate start.
MEN’S NCAA HOCKEY
The Adrian College men’s hockey team traveled to Bowling Green State University to compete against its first Division I team since 2013. The Bulldogs dropped the game 6-2 scoring both of their goals in the third period. Ryan Butler and Connor May picked up the goals for Adrian while Grant Bartsen, Andrew Bellant, and Zach Goberis (2) picked up assists. Cam Gray collected 40 saves in goal during his 60 minutes played.
WOMEN’S NCAA HOCKEY AND ACHA WOMEN’S D1
The Adrian College NCAA hockey team and the ACHA women’s D1 hockey team competed in a two-game weekend series scrimmage. Due to the scrimmage, no stats were reported. The NCAA team came away with a 3-0 win on Friday night scoring all three goals in the first ten minutes of the game. On Saturday, NCAA went down 1-0 less than a minute into the game, but came back and won 7-1.
ACHA MEN’S D1
The Adrian College ACHA men’s D1 team hosted No. 2 ranked Liberty in a two-game series at home. Adrian finished on top on Thursday by a score of 5-2, and won 7-0 on Friday. Game one was led by Tyler Fyfe and Matteo Digiulio who both had two goals. Fyfe also collected two assists in the game. Game two was led by Connor Smith and Domenic Moore who finished with a pair of goals each. Brandon Stanko and Sheldon Nolan picked up three assists each, and Michael Barrett collected the shutout in goal.
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