This story, photos, courtesy of NMU Sports Information
OVI SAD, Serbia - One day after Payton Jacobson captured the first medal in Northern Michigan Greco-Roman Wrestling program history, Otto Black followed suit with another bronze on Wednesday, at the U23 World Championships.
The podium finish marks the second World-level medal of Black's career and gives the United States two U23 Greco-Roman medals in the same year for the first time in tournament history.
Black earned the 8-6 victory over Bagdat Sabaz (Kazakhstan) after fending off a late comeback attempt. He built leads of 5-0 and 7-2 before Sabaz narrowed the gap to one in the final 30 seconds. Following a challenge review from Kazakhstan, the officials upheld the score, awarding an additional point to Black and sealing his bronze-medal win.
With Jacobson and Black both earning bronze, Northern will have one more chance to add to its historic week as Max Black competes for bronze in the 60 kg weight class on Thursday.
On Tuesday, after a setback in the 87kg semifinal round that saw Jacobson fall to Gholamreza Farokhisenjani of Iran 9-0, Jacobson bounced back in the bronze medal bout, securing a 5-3 victory over Lachin Valiyev of Azerbaijan.
Jacobson and Valiyev were tied 3-3 with just over a minute to go when Jacobson converted the match-winning takedown. "When I picked him up, I was thinking explode as much as I could...it was the best throw I've ever had and it felt phenomenal," Jacobson said. "It's been a long process to get here, and I had to really push myself to the end."
"He wants those challenges and he gets excited for them," said head coach Andy Bisek. " He was ready for those scenarios."
It was Jacobson's fourth win of the tournament, also defeating Rohit Bura of India, Gabriel Lupasco of Moldova, and Zaur Shangereev of UWW in earlier rounds.
More on Jacobson's tournament, along with a postgame interview from both Jacobson and Bisek, can be found here.
Otto Black also impressed in the 67kg class, collecting two victories during the prelims with a 7-3 win over Adomas Grigaliunas of Lithuania and a second-period pin against Yanis Guendez Nifri of France. Black would then narrowly fall by a 1-1 criteria contest to Mohamed Abdelrehim of Egypt in the quarterfinals.
Kaden Ercanbrack and Kenneth Crosby also competed for Northern Michigan.
More from Wednesday's competition can be found here.
