Nishi-Rivera Takes Second, Wildcats Finish Eighth at 2024-25 Heart Championships
OSKALOOSA, Iowa - Baker men's wrestling senior Christian Nishi-Rivera came away with a runner-up finish to lead a Wildcats team that placed eighth overall at the 2024-25 Heart Men's Wrestling Championships this past weekend in Oskaloosa, Iowa.
Baker totaled a team score of 66.5 points and was barely edged out by seventh-place St. Ambrose who tallied 68 points. Grand View secured its 10th straight Heart title with a tournament-best 239.5 points and six individual conference champions.
Nishi-Rivera was one of six BU wrestlers to earn placement honors at the two-day conference tournament with Nikolas Slatoff joining Nishi-Rivera as the two Wildcats to claim all-conference finishes.
Wrestling at 133 pounds, Nishi-Rivera, a senior out of Las Vegas, won his first two matches by decision, including an incredible 4-1 victory over GVU's Jackson Cockrell, who ranks No. 2 nationally in the weight class. Nishi-Rivera scrambled for some late points in the championship bout before eventually falling to No. 11 Haden Hernandez of Missouri Valley.
Slatoff went 4-1 in his matches in the 149-pound gauntlet, opening with a pin and a tech fall in his first two matches on Friday. After falling in Saturday's semifinal match, he rattled off a pair of major decision wins to place third and earn All-Conference Honorable Mention.
Jakob Stovall and Jonah Muhammad finished in back-to-back spots for the Wildcats at 157 pounds with Stovall taking fourth and Muhammad following in fifth. The pair faced each other in the semifinals of the consolation bracket where Stovall moved on to the third-place bout with a close 5-4 decision win over his teammate.
Stovall came up short on a 5-3 decision to finish in fourth while Muhammad rallied for a commanding 18-7 major decision win in his placement match.
Saoul Prado took fifth in the 125-pound bracket with a gritty 2-1 win in his first action of the tournament on Friday. After dropping his next two matches, Prado earned a win over Graceland's Clemente Delgado, who sits directly behind Prado in the national rankings at No. 21, in the fifth-place match.
In his first conference tournament, freshman Nikolas Gonzalez took eighth at 133 pounds after battling through a couple of tough matches, including a quarterfinal matchup against a top-20 wrestler in William Penn's Lane Scorpil (No. 20).
Overall, the Wildcats had three wrestlers qualify for the 2025 NAIA Men's Wrestling Championships with S. Prado (125), Nishi-Rivera (133) and Slatoff (149) all punching their first tickets to the national tournament.
After the conference tournaments have concluded, a 16-member committee consisting of conference raters and oversight members will meet to select the remaining at-large qualifiers, which will be released Tuesday, February 25, 2025, by 5 p.m. (CST), while the preliminary brackets and seeding will be announced on NAIA.org by 5 p.m. (CST) on Friday, February 28, 2025. All weight classes will consist of 28 wrestlers.
The NAIA Championships are set to take place on March 6-8 at Hartman Arena in Park City, Kan.
#BakerBuildsChampions