WILLIAMSBURG, Ky. (TMCSports) -- This past Saturday, Truett-McConnell College's wrestling team traveled to Williamsburg, Ky., for the Patriot Open. This was our first open tournament of the year. The host school was The University of the Cumberlands. There were no team scores kept, only individual results.

The team had 10 wrestlers compete. Of the 10, we had 5 placers. Patrick Blankenbeker finished 2nd at 184#; Gabe Miller was 3rd at 133#, his only loss was to the tournament champion; Zach Brown was 5th at 149#, both matches lost were to the same wrestler who finished 3rd; JT Jerome was 5th at 197#; and Travis Burton was 6th at 285#. Travis reached the semifinals and then had to injury default out the rest of the tournament, which placed him 6th.

The rest of the team competed well but fell short. Also competing were Billy Abrahmsen -- one loss was to the returning national runner up from last year, Chris Carlton, Brody Lively, Josh Cook, and Buddy Camp.

The other big news from this tournament is that we have 2 of our wrestlers who have qualified for Nationals. One of the ways to qualify for the national tournament is to place in the open tournaments during the season. How high you have toplace depends on the size of your weight class in that tournament. Because of their finishes this weekend, Patrick Blankenbeker and Gabe Miller have qualified for the National Tournament in March. These are the first ofwhat we hope to be many national qualifiers for Truett-McConnell's wrestling program.

Our next competition will be the Roman Open at Shorter University, Nov. 12.

MARION, Ala. (TMCSports) -- Truett-McConnell College inaugurated its collegiate wrestling program Saturday, Oct. 22, in encouraging, but not completely successful fashion. TMC lost to Georgia Southern University, 29-24, followed by a second loss to Marion Military Institute, 42-15.

"Our congratulations extend to GSU and MMI. Both schools have good wrestling programs with participants to match. Both teams introduced TMC to the world of collegiatewrestling and showed us we have much to learn and a lot of hard work ahead of us," Coach Jim Bailey said.

TMC scored 5-5 against GSU and 4-6 against MMI. Some TMC wrestlers were, for various reasons, not wrestling in their own weight classes, so some bumping up was necessary. In upper weight classes, TMC gave up as much as 20 pounds. "But we fought hard, and this takes nothing away from the other teams," Bailey said. "You wrestle who shows up and do your best. Still, we have to get tougher in some weight classes."

Areas of improvement include taking full advantage of bonus points as TMC gave up too many of them, Bailey added. TMC also had to forfeit one match, thus skewing the score in the opponent's favor.

Individual results:

B. Abrahamsen: 2-0

G. Miller: 2-0

C. Carlton: 0-2

Z. Brown: 2-0

B. Lively: 1-1

D. Branom: 1-1

J. Pate: 1-1

J. Cook: 0-2

J. Jerome: 0-2

B. Camp: 0-2