Jordan Wood made another trip to a national-level wrestling tournament this summer.
And he had a companion on the trip.
Wood traveled to Fargo, N.D. for the Asics/Vaughan Cadet/Junior National Championships the week of July 18-25. It was another stellar outing for Pennsylvania's defending 220-pound Class AAA champion, the Boyertown High senior-to-be emerging as a freestyle champion and Greco-Roman runner-up in that Junior weight class.
Joining him was Boyertown teammate Tommy Killoran, a PIAA Class AAA medalist at 285 this past year. Like Wood, Killoran participated in both the Junior freestyle and Greco-Roman competitions at the tournament.
"Jordan said it would be a good time ... a good experience," Killoran said.
Wood sold the idea to Killoran with another offer.
"I told him I'd do the driving," Wood said.
Wood was his classic dominating self in the Freestyle field, scoring five technical falls by a combined score of 51-1 and a 13-second pin.
His tech-falls came against Hawaii's James Sullivan, Missouri's Christian Lance, fellow Pennsylvanian Cole Nye - a student at Wyoming Seminary, Class of 2017 - California's Darryl Aiello and Minnesota's Rylee Streifel. The pin came against North Dakota's Waylon Decoteau in his second-round match.
Aiello was the only one of Wood's opponents to score a point on him, in their semifinal bout. The championship match saw Wood handle Streifel in the last of four 10-0 verdicts he posted.
"I knew if I wrestled like I could, I'd be pretty dominant," he said. "It was nice to get the results I did.
"I wanted to get my confidence back in, to prove I can still be a force in the country, not just the state."
Wood is working to position himself in the national rankings for a dual match Monday, Oct. 26, at Lehigh University. The match will pit the country's top two wrestlers in each weight class ... a distinction Wood solidified for himself by receiving All-American honors.
"I'd been wrestling other champs before," he said. "I just wanted to further the gap between myself and everyone else for the number-one and two rankings."
Wood was the only freestyle champion from Pennsylvania. Four other Keystone State grapplers placed in the Top eight of their brackets to earn All American status.
Wood was also accorded All-American honors in Greco-Roman wrestling, by virtue of his second-place finish.
He went 5-1 in the field, scoring four technical falls by a combined score of 47-2. That set up a semifinal-round duel with G'Angelo Hancock, a USA Jr. World Team member and Olympic Training Center resident.
Wood took a 12-10 decision in the semi. But his run ended with a 6-3 loss in the finals.
"It was a good tournament. I just had one bad match," he said."
The next wrestling activity on Wood's agenda will be a visit to the Olympic Training Center the week of Aug. 18. Wood noted the team of which he hopes to be a member will be working out there.
For the upcoming 2015-16 school year, Wood will be looking to repeat as a PIAA Class AAA champion. He won the 220-pound weight class as a junior after two years of silver-medal finishes, and will go into his final scholastic campaign looking to expand his 107-4 career record.
Killoran, making his first appearance in a tournament of that caliber, competed at 285. He went 3-2 in freestyle and 5-1 in Greco-Roman, coming up just short of Top Eight finishes that would have put him in the medal rounds and accorded him All-American status.
"It looked like a good experience," he said. "I got a lot out of it. It (the competition) was tougher than what I saw at states."
Off a first-round bye, Killoran scored a 10-0 technical fall on Virginia's Thomas Shea-Roop. He was tech-falled, in turn, by Ohio's Kevin Vough 11-0, but responded by pinning Washington's Duke Clinch in 1:14 and posting a 13-0 tech-fall on Ohio's Ian Sharp.
Killoran's run in the Junior Freestyle bracket ended with a 12-2 tech fall at the hands of Kansas' Chase Miller. He finished one win shy of a Top Eight finish that would have qualified for a medal.
"It would have been nice to be All-American," he said, "but it wasn't bad, what I did. Jordan showed me a lot of stuff that was useful."
Killoran was coming off a stellar high-school season that was his first as a varsity-level wrestler. He placed sixth in the 285-pound weight class at the PIAA Class AAA Championships - that after winning the weight class in the District 1-AAA West and Southeast AAA Regional tournaments.
"I'm going to keep working," he said. "I'm taking a break now, but I'm going to work some more."
Prior to the Asica/Vaughan tournament, Wood and Killoran joined other tourney-bound Pennsylvania wrestlers for a camp at Johnstown that ran between two and three days. They went through multiple workouts at the camp before heading west to Fargo.
NOTES >> Wood was one of five Greco-Roman wrestlers from Pennsylvania to achieve All-American status. Jaret Lane (100) and Hayden Hidlay (152) took first place in their respective weights, Zane Black (195) finished fourth and Michael Rodgers (220) ended up sixth. ... Wood and Lane were both double Fargo finalists. Lane, a student at Southern Columbia who placed fifth at 106 in the PIAA Class AA tourney this past winter, was a Greco-Roman champion and Freestyle runner-up. ... As a lead-in to his senior season, Killoran noted he will be looking to compete in the Super 32 Challenge, which will be taking place in October.
