CHESTERFIELD, Mo. - No.10 McKendree University men's wrestling (4-4) opened its Great Lakes Valley Conference slate on Friday evening on the road, falling to the Saints of Maryville in a razor-thin match, 23-22. The Bearcats captured five matchup wins with four bonus-point win, including two majors, one technical fall, and one pin fall. McKendree has a short gap between its in-league battles but heads out to Ohio for two non-conference duals against Ashland and Findlay on January 20 and 21. 
 

	Weight	Match	MU	No.10 MCK
	125	#4 Christian Mejia (McKendree) over Sam Shafer (Maryville) (Fall 2:02)	0	6
	133	#10 Evan Binder (Maryville) over Jason Strope (McKendree) (Fall 1:01)	6	0
	141	#5 Ronan Schuelke (McKendree) over Kody Ketchum (Maryville) (Dec 8-2)	0	3
	149	Javier Gutierrez (Maryville) over Ryan Schepers (McKendree) (Dec 9-4)	3	0
	157	Josh Laubach (McKendree) over John Bamvakais (Maryville) (MD 12-3)	0	4
	165	Cole Ritter (Maryville) over Rylee Edwards (McKendree) (TF 20-4 5:24)	5	0
	174	#7 Matt Ortiz (McKendree) over Brian Thorpe (Maryville) (MD 10-0)	0	4
	184	Zeke Waltz (McKendree) over John Gholson (Maryville) (TF 22-6 6:44)	0	5
	197	Jeramiah Larson (Maryville) over Logan Kvien (McKendree) (Fall 4:28)	6	0
	285	Ryan Herman (Maryville) over Caleb Guise (McKendree) (Dec 1-0)	3	0
Team Score:			23	22

NOTES
McKendree dropped its first match to the Saints since the 2016-17 season, when Maryville topped the Bearcats by one point. 

#4 125lb Christian Mejia tallied his eighth fall of the season in the victory, moving his record to 17-4 overall. The redshirt senior has 15 wins for bonus points on the campaign. 

#5 141lb Ronan Schuelke earned his team-leading 24th win of the year and his ninth decision win. Schuelke's last loss came in the 44th Midwest Classic prior to taking fifth place in his weight class.

#7 174lb Matt Ortiz added his seventh extra-point win of the campaign behind a 10-0 major decision. 

184 Zeke Waltz collected his third win via technical superiority, capturing the win in the third period. 
 
UP NEXT
January 20 | 7:00PM @ Findlay | Findlay, Ohio
January 21 | 1:00PM @ No.20 Ashland | Ashland, Ohio

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