KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Izzak Olejnik struggled to catch his breath.
The exhilaration, surrealness and magnitude of the moment was too much to comprehend. His college wrestling career had concluded.
“Kind of hard to come to terms with the fact that it’s over,” he said. “But what a ride.”
He isn’t leaving Kansas City, Missouri, with the individual title he had hoped for, but he is leaving in style after a 3-0 decision over Stanford’s Hunter Garvin, the 20-seed at 165, to win fifth.
“I wouldn’t have had (this year) gone any other way,” Olejnik said.