Spartan Nation Welcomes MSU Wrestling Alum Chris Tyler to the Site with his First Article. Franklin Gomez: He the Man!
I had the pleasure of attending the NCAA wrestling championships at the ScottTrade Center in St. Louis, MO this past weekend. As an MSU wrestling alumn, I was there to check out all the action and in particular root on the Spartan Nation’s lone representative, Franklin Gomez at 133 pounds. Â
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Gomez was among the nation’s best last year as a freshman. His season ended early however after losing two matches at the Big Ten tournament keeping him out of the NCAA tournament.Â
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 I’m sure that provided plenty of motivation for this season. Gomez compiled a 28-1 record during the regular season with his only loss to Joey Slaton of Iowa at the prestigious Midlands Championships tournament. Gomez avenged his loss, 10-8 in the semi-finals at the Big Ten tournament and went on to win the conference title by defeating Illinois ’ James Kennedy 3-1. Â
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After winning the Big Ten tournament, Gomez came into the NCAA tournament as the top seed at 133 pounds. He took his first match easily 12-3, defeating Josh Baldridge of Northern Iowa. His second match went well past the typical 7-minute match, taking 13 minutes and 3 overtimes. Reece Humphrey of Ohio State took a 4-3 lead with about 30 seconds left in the match. Gomez tried for an escape while time ticked away. The two wrestlers went out of bounds with only 8 seconds left. Nearly every one of the 14,000 plus people on hand cheered for Reece Humphrey of Ohio State to pull off the upset. After the official set the wrestlers, with Gomez on the bottom, and blew the whistle, Gomez popped up and escaped with time to spare! The match went into a series of overtimes and Gomez came out victorious via a tiebreaker. Â
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Gomez then defeated the number 8 seed Mack Reiter of Minnesota 5-3 to earn a spot in the semi-finals; a rubber-match with Joey Slaton of Iowa .Â
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After a scoreless 1st period, Gomez started the 2nd on bottom. He was able to take a 1- point lead by escaping. Gomez then immediately took a shot on Slaton and came up to his feet with one leg in hand. Slaton fought off the takedown at the edge of the mat. As Gomez tried to finish the takedown to earn 2 points, Slaton dove out of bounds to defend. Gomez finished on top with one foot in bounds and would have been awarded the 2 point takedown, but the official called them out of bounds saying that Gomez’ foot went out prior to the finish with many of the non-Iowa fans wanting the call in Gomez’ favor. The second period remained scoreless and Slaton earned his escape in the 3rd period to tie it up. Slaton took a shot in the sudden victory overtime and while it looked like Gomez was going to be able to defend and maybe score a takedown himself, he got out of position and gave up the 2 points, losing the match 4-2. Â
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This match was disheartening to watch especially since I had an Iowa fan right behind me yelling, “that’s justice,†whatever that means.  It’s arguable that Gomez went out of bounds on his takedown attempt in the 2nd period and it’s also arguable as to whether or not he deserved 1 point for Slaton “fleeing the mat;†something not permitted in wrestling. Nonetheless, it was great to see Gomez bounce back and win his next two matches over the 7th seed Mike Grey from Cornell and the 2nd seed James Kennedy of Illinois to take 3rd place. As for Joey Slaton, he went on to get pinned in the finals against Coleman Scott of Oklahoma State. How’s that for justice? Incidentally, Coleman Scott is the same wrestler who defeated MSU’s Nick Simmons in the semi-finals a year ago. Â
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The Spartan team finished 29th in the country and will return a lot of young talent giving Spartan wrestling fans a lot to look forward to over the next few years. And, not only is Gomez a sophomore, but so are James Kennedy and Joey Slaton, so there will be many battles to come.
