Augustine, Megaludis win national freestyle titles
Pittsburgh had a couple of high-rollers in Las Vegas last weekend at the USMC U.S. Open Wrestling Championships.
Pitt freshman Luca Augustine claimed the Under-20 freestyle national title at 79 kilograms while the Pittsburgh Wrestling Club’s Nico Megaludis captured the Senior freestyle championship at 61 kilograms.
Augustine’s victory means he’ll earn a spot in the best-of-three finals of the World Team Trials in Ohio June 3-5, where he’ll await the winner of the challenge tournament. Megaludis will be the top seed at the World Team Trials in Iowa at the end of May. The winner there will advance to Final X Stillwater on June 3 to face Daton Fix for a spot on the world team.
Augustine was a PIAA champion at Waynesburg Central and went 12-5 while redshirting this season, but this is probably his biggest statement on a national stage, even if none of his victories came against household names. He showed great versatility, scoring consistently with gutwrenches on the mat as well as from front headlocks and underhooks on his feet.
His 6-0 performance included a pair of falls, a technical fall and three lopsided scores. His tightest match came in the semifinals, where he trailed Nebraska’s Elise Brown Ton 9-0 at the break before storming back to take the lead in the final seconds. He eventually pinned the Cornhusker, who was a fourth-place finisher at the Cadet World Team Trials in 2019.
Brown Ton used a pair of four-point moves and a passivity call to get within a point of ending it early, but Augustine scored seven consecutive points to start the second period. The Pitt wrestler tied it at 11, but still trailed on criteria when he went feet to back with 17 seconds remaining, then switched to a headlock to pin the Brown Ton.
The finals match wasn’t quite as dramatic, as he ground down Danny Wask, a Navy recruit from Blair Academy (N.J.) who was a Fargo runner-up last year. Wask led 3-2 late in the first period, but Augustine used a front headlock go-behind to take the lead just before the break. He continued to pile on the points in the second on his way to a 13-4 victory.
Megaludis made a triumphant return from two serious knee injuries, going 5-0 in Vegas while outscoring his opponents by a combined score of 45-10.
“After two ACL surgeries, I’ve been locked up for three years. Three dang years!” he said in a interview posted on flowrestling.org. “Now I get to win this. This is my second competition back in three years. Back-to-back, same knee. Now I’m freaking ready to rock ‘n’ roll.”
Megaludis, who won an NCAA title for Penn State in 2016, turns 30 in July and competes for the Pittsburgh Wrestling Club in addition to working a day job.
“I love this sport. I love it, baby,” he said. “That’s why I do it. I don’t need to do it. I’m a financial advisor. I have a team. I’m successful. I love it. I’ve built that. I don’t need to do this; I want to do it.”
In the semifinals, Megaludis beat 2018 NCAA champ Seth Gross. Megaludis led 1-0 after the first period on a shot-clock point, then earned two critical exposure points with 1:30 remaining in the bout. Gross got a step-out point, then came close to a potential match-winning takedown on the edge with 13 seconds remaining. Gross challenged the call and lost, resulting in the final point in Megaludis’ 4-1 victory.
In the championship bout against the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club’s Josh Rodriguez, Megaludis controlled the action for most of the match, scoring a passivity point and a late first-period takedown off a beautiful left-handed low single.
“I pressured him the whole match,” Megaludis said. “I knew he was going to play the cat and mouse game the whole time.
Rodriguez turned up the heat in the final minute of the bout but could only come up with a step-out point.
Megaludis was asked about facing someone from the NLWC.
“I’m not a Nittany Lion, I’m Pitt,” he said. “I’m not saying that disrespectfully. I love Penn State, but you’ve got to wrestle your coaches sometimes.”
The Pittsburgh Wrestling Club got fourth-place finishes out of Luke Pletcher (65 kilos) and Demetrius Thomas (125 kilos). Pitt All-American Cole Matthews placed eighth at 65 kilos.