Brian Smith has been the winningest coach in Missouri wrestling history for some time.
Now he’s just padding his stats.
Smith earned the 200th and 201st dual wins of his Mizzou coaching career during Saturday night’s home opener at the Hearnes Center. The milestone came as the No. 6 Tigers swept their doubleheader.
Mizzou beat Truman State 54 – 0, then Missouri Baptist 43 – 3.
“The achievement is nice,” Smith said. “But this team is really focused on the national tournament, the MAC tournament, and what we’re trying to accomplish this year.”
Truman State and Missouri Baptist are small wrestling programs, but sophomore Matt Manley said that didn’t change the way he prepared for his duals.
“I treat it the same as I would if I was wrestling a national champion,” Manley said. “Same routine, same kind of practice — I don’t change anything up.”
Manley, who wrestled at 133 pounds, enjoyed a standout night. Against Truman State freshman Ethan Rentschler, Manley recorded three takedowns in the first period before pinning Rentschler for a 9 – 2 victory.
The duel only lasted 1:23.
Manley scored another three takedowns and a win by fall against Missouri Baptist sophomore Troy Reed.
“My offense was there today,” Manley said. “I came out, I was aggressive, I got multiple takedowns in both matches before getting the falls.”
His two victories at Mizzou’s home opener only build on what has been an impressive start to the season for Manley. Last weekend, he secured an event title at the Harold Nichols Cyclone Open at Iowa State.
“I’m kind of hot right now. I’m on a streak,” Manley said. “I’m wrestling really well, practicing really well. I’m just doing everything right right now, let’s just hope it keeps carrying on.”
Missouri’s reigning 197-pound national champion, sophomore J’den Cox, put on a dominating performance in the doubleheader, winning both of his duels by wide margins.
Against Truman State senior Helmut Rentschler, Cox recorded four takedowns and three near falls through two periods, before securing a 17–2 victory by technical fall.
Cox had a scare midway through the second period of his duel against Missouri Baptist senior Luis Contreras. After taking a shot to the groin, Cox doubled over and appeared to be in a significant amount of pain.
He recovered quickly, however, and wrestled well throughout the remainder of the three period duel. Cox beat Contreras by major decision, 13 – 2.
Senior Mikey England transferred to Mizzou from Iowa State last year and had almost immediate success. He wrestled his way to 19 wins overall last season, including four pins and three major decisions. His fifth place finish at the 2014 MAC Championships earned him an automatic qualifying bid to the 2014 NCAA National Championships.
England is off to a hot start this season as well, earning an event title at the Cyclone Open last weekend. But he suffered a bump in the road in his second duel Saturday night.
England trailed during most of his duel against senior Andrew Carter-Johnson of Missouri Baptist.
“It kind of caught me with something I wasn’t expecting. He put me on my back and scored five points off of it,” England said.
England was down 6–5 until a takedown with eight seconds left in the third period catapulted him to a 7–6 win by decision.
“I kept working,” England said. “We work super hard on conditioning so I knew I was going to be in better shape than him. Luckily it worked out,” England said.
England knows he should’ve performed better against a wrestler from an unranked program, but he also sees the values in early season adversity.
“It didn’t got smoothly, but I got the win which is the most important thing,” England said. “It’s nice to have matches like this before the bigger matches later on in the season.”
The Tigers next dual is Sunday, Nov. 23 against No. 19 Old Dominion.
“We have a big duel coming up against Old Dominion,” Smith said. “They’re a really good team. It’s something we’ve been preparing for.”