Kent State Wrestling’s Andrew McNally and Tyler Bates won every match in their respective weight classes at Appalachian State’s Mountaineer Invitational and App State Open in Boone, North Carolina Saturday.

In addition to the two competition champs, the Flashes racked up five third place spots in the second week of the season.

Coach Jim Andrassy was satisfied with the results of the Open in comparison to last week’s stats.

Last Saturday’s season home opener brought two wins and a loss for the Flashes against Mercyhurst, Ashland and Edinboro.

“It’s the second week and I think we wrestled a lot better than we did last week, which was important, so it looks like we’re improving,” Andrassy said. “We’ve changed some things from last week in our wrestling and how we are approaching things, so that’s a good thing.”

Wrestlers McNally in the 174 weight class and Bates in the 185 weight class stood out to Andrassy this competition.

“They wrestled hard, wrestled in all positions really well and just fought really hard,” Andrassy said.

Appalachian State, Oregon State, West Virginia, Gardner-Webb, Central Michigan, Air Force of the Big 12 and Duke of the ACC were present at the invitational.

Wrestlers from Virginia, Campbell, Chattanooga and Presbyterian also registered for the open tournament according to the preview by Kent State Sports. 

Following the open, Andrassy has high hopes for the team going into the rest of the season.

“I think that any time the guys go out there, they can improve from week to week on just basic wrestling skills and improving in the sense of giving themselves a better chance to win matches,” he said.

There was not a specific area that needed improvement for the team.

“A lot of times in matches, it’s the small things you have to do to just change your wrestling,” Andrassy said.

He expects the team to continue working hard during the week and apply new techniques during matches.

The team is made up of 26 freshmen including redshirt freshmen, five sophomores, six juniors and two seniors.

“We’re still a pretty young team, so I think the biggest thing is as long as we improve every week and wrestle hard, I’m a pretty happy coach,” Andrassy said.

The team will take on Michigan State and Oklahoma University next on Nov. 16 at 12 p.m. in the M.A.C.C.

Contact Hannah Gooch at [email protected].