World Team member Reece Humphrey beat Olympic medalist Coleman Scott in the U.S. Open finals. Tony Rotundo photo. Continued from page 12
a great competitor. You want the guy that beat you to do well. I was definitely rooting for him and happy for him when he won a medal.”
Humphrey is determined to make sure Scott and other Americans at 60 kilos won’t have a chance to medal at this year’s World Championships.
The 26-year-old Humphrey downed Scott 2-0, 1-0 in the finals
of April’s U.S. Open in Las Vegas. He was named Outstanding Wrestler in freestyle. With the win, Humphrey advances to the best-of-3 finals for June’s World Team Trials in Stillwater, Okla. “I have a lot of fire for this year after what happened to me last year,” he said. “Missing out on the Olympics, that really drives me. That’s why I was so ready for this year.” Humphrey, a past World University silver and bronze medal- ist, is looking to make his second trip to the World Championships. He reached the quarterfinals of the 2011 Worlds in Istanbul, Turkey before finishing ninth. Humphrey suffered a tough, three-period loss to France’s Didier Pais in that quarterfinal bout. The third period was score- less and went to the ball draw. Pais won the draw and finished in the leg clinch to advance to the semifinals. “I think about that match a lot,” Humphrey said. “I think the guy was stalling and blocking me, but I needed to turn it on and
14 USA Wrestler
score. I need to learn from that match and get better. I can’t let that happen again.”
Humphrey looked like he may have the inside track on mak- ing the 2012 Olympic Team, but he suffered a torn lateral collat- eral ligament in his knee two months before the Olympic Trials. He was also sidelined by a broken hand less than a month before the Trials.
Humphrey was scheduled to wrestle in an Olympic Games qualifier in China before being injured. Bunch, a past World Team member, went to China instead and qualified the U.S. for the Olympic Games at 60 kg.
Since Humphrey was injured, he was placed in a three-per- son wrestle-off along with Scott and Bunch in New York. Scott beat Humphrey in the first match before Scott downed Bunch in the finals to earn a trip to the Olympics.
“I lost to Coleman on two clinches,” Humphrey said. “I let it go to two ball draws and he got both. I got a pushout to win the second period, but he won it on ball draws in the first and third periods. I felt like I was right there, but it didn’t happen.” Even though he is sitting out until the finals of this year’s
World Team Trials, Humphrey said he plans to wrestle simulated matches while the Challenge Tournament is going on to prepare him for the best-of-3 final-round series.
Continued on page 15
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