GRANTHAM, PA – The Wilkes University wrestling team saw two of its student-athletes place in the top-eight of the Messiah Open as Caden Temple (Orangeville, PA/Benton) and Hunter Lowe (Westminster, MD/Winters Mill) both placed fifth in their respective weight classes on Saturday. The Messiah Open featured wrestlers from all three NCAA divisions.

Full Results (Search Messiah Open)

For Temple, it was his second consecutive tournament placement as he was also fifth last weekend at the John Summa Invitational. He began his 141-pound bracket competition with a Round of 16 win by a 17-2 technical fall over Blake Schmidt of Liberty University. He then made it to the Semifinals with a fall in 3:51 over Ursinus College's Jacob Sheiner in a Quarterfinal bout. Tyler Dekraker who was wrestling unattached defeated Temple by a 6-1 decision in the Semifinals. The sophomore then lost in his first consolation match by a 17-1 technical fall to Spencer Barnhart of the University of Pennsylvania. In the Fifth-Place Bout he received a no contest to earn fifth over Nick Cottone of Millersville University.

Lowe earned his fourth tournament placement of the season with a fifth in the 184-pound bracket. The senior began with a 17-2 technical fall over Messiah University's Nathan Kovalcik in the Round of 16. Lowe dropped a 6-3 sudden victory overtime decision to Franklin & Marshall College's Jake Allred in the Quarterfinals. He then wrestled back with a 15-0 technical fall over Jake Gerish of TCNJ and an 18-11 decision over Dave Giulian of TCNJ before losing to Rylan Moose of Marymount University by an 18-2 technical fall. In the Fifth-Place Bout Lowe defeated Allred who he had lost to earlier, this time with a 4-0 decision.

Cadden Kucek (Forty Fort, PA/Wyoming Valley West), Rocky Finnegan (Laporte, PA/Sullivan County), and Noah Rosa (Reading, PA/Berks Catholic) (125), Sam Kimmel (Drexel Hill, PA/Upper Darby) and Ethan Washburn (Ringwood, NJ/Bergen Catholic) (133), Conner Sklavounos (Township of Washington, NJ/Westwood Regional) (141), Ben Grater (Saddle Brooke, NJ/Saddle Brook) and Jackson Brady (Goshen, NY/Goshen Central) (149), Jared Bilinski (Dolgeville, NY/Dolgeville Central) and Devin Doty (Port Jervis, NY/Minisink Valley) (174), Omari Watson (Clayton, NJ/Clayton) (184), and Trevor Gitski (Alburtis, PA/Emmaus) (285) also competed for the Colonels.

Wilkes returns to action for a dual match at cross-town rival King's College on Friday night at 7:00 p.m.