<p>ST. LOUIS — Iowa’s Spencer Lee was his usual dominant self on the opening day of the NCAA wrestling championships, and the Hawkeyes were well-positioned to end a 10-year team championship drought.</p>
<p>The Hawks, who qualified wrestlers in all 10 weights, had 26 points with second-round matches in five weight divisions still to be contested Thursday night. Penn State was second with 22 and Missouri third with 21.</p>
<p>All of the top seeds through 157 pounds had made it through to the quarterfinals Friday.</p>
<p>Lee, the 125-pounder who’s bidding for a third straight national title, needed only 1:33 to end his opening match against Virginia’s Patrick McCormick, and he won by major decision over West Virginia’s Killian Cardinale.</p>
<p>Jaydin Eierman, a three-time All-American who transferred to Iowa from Missouri, had a tougher than expected second-round match at 141, advancing with a 5-3 decision over Pittsburgh’s 16th-seeded Cole Matthews.</p>
<p>The Hawkeyes’ other two top seeds, three-time Big Ten champ Alex Marinelli (165) and two-time All-American Michael Kemerer (184), had late matches.</p>
<p>The Hawkeyes got valuable points from 12th-seeded Max Murin, who advanced to the 149 quarterfinals with a 5-3 decision over No. 5 Ridge Lovett of Nebraska.</p>
<p>Iowa’s lone loss came at 157, where No. 12 Brady Berge of Penn State won 5-2 over No. 5 Kaleb Young.</p>
<p>Penn State won 11 of its first 13 matches and has quarterfinalists in No. 2 Roman Bravo-Young (133), No. 2 Nick Lee (141) and Berge.</p>
<p>A couple high seeds advanced to quarterfinals. Northwestern’s Yahya Thomas, No. 25 at 149, won 10-4 over No. 9 Legend Lamer of Cal Poly and Stanford’s Real Woods, No. 21 at 141, earned a 5-1 overtime decision over No. 5 Dom Demas of Oklahoma.</p>
<p>The biggest upsets of the opening round came at 197, where No. 31 Owen Pentz of North Dakota State pinned No. 2 Eric Schultz of Nebraska in 4:51, and No. 26 Jake Woodley of Oklahoma won a 4-1 decision over Missouri freshman Rocky Elam.</p>
<p>Pentz is the first North Dakota State true freshman to qualify for nationals. The Bison wrestle in the Big 12, and Pentz got an at-large bid after going 2-2 in the conference tournament.</p>
<p>He’s not a typical freshman, though. He was a member of Fresno State’s first signing class in 2016 and went on a two-year Mormon mission from 2017-19 prior to enrolling. When Fresno State announced in October it was dropping wrestling, Pentz transferred to North Dakota State.</p>
<p>“Surprised I was able to go out there and stay in the fight pull off a pin on a kid that’s ranked,” Pentz said. “It helps me know I can compete with top-level kids in this tournament and makes me excited for the next matches.”</p>
<p>Wrestling continues Friday, with the finals set for Saturday night.</p>
