Graduate student Jake Ferri is a hard-working wrestler, according to his coach Jim Andrassy.

After six years in the program, Ferri ended his career at KSU with a 106-62 all-time overall record. Ferri is tied for the 16th most wins in Kent State program history.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever find anyone that works harder than Jake,” Andrassy said. “We got everything out of Jake that we could and that’s how we evaluate things. I couldn’t have expected any more than what we got from him.”

Thursday, Ferri competed in the NCAA tournament for the second time in his wrestling career.

Ferri, the only KSU wrestler at the tournament, came in as the No. 23 seed out of 33 wrestlers in the 125-pounder bracket.

“It’s a great tournament – it’s the hardest tournament of the year and everybody here is good,” coach Jim Andrassy said. “He got better at the end of the day. He just wasn’t as good as the two guys he wrestled and he wasn’t able to upset them but he wrestled hard.”

Ferri played the No. 10 wrestler in the country at 125-pounds in his first match.

Arizona State’s Brandon Courtney defeated Ferri in a 5-3 decision, sending Ferri to the consolation bracket.

There he lost to Brandon Kaylor, the No. 7 wrestler at 125 pounds, from Oregon State in an 11-6 decision.

Ferri’s second loss of the tournament ended his season.

“He just wasn’t as good as these guys,” Andrassy said. “It wasn’t from a lack of effort or a lack of working hard because Jake is one of the hardest working guys I have had in all of my career.”

Andrassy described the different wrestling styles Ferri faced.

“He wrestled hard, he just couldn’t get his offense going against these two guys – they’re both very defensively good, and they’re both very quick wrestlers,” Andrassy said. “Jake’s not the quickest of all the wrestlers and that makes it hard. It’s a contrast of styles and it makes it more difficult. There’s some guys out there that are very explosive and quick that Jake doesn’t do as well against.”

His win total is tied with current head coach Jim Andrassy. Ferri wrestled for six seasons and never had a season below 12 wins.

Ferri was also a two-time national qualifier and a four-time Mid-American Conference tournament placer, including two third-place finishes and a second-place finish in this year’s tournament.

Ferri ended his last collegiate season with a 21-9 record.

Looking ahead

The team finished this season with a 1-12 record overall with a 1-7 record against conference opponents.

The Flashes only win was over Bloomsburg in the last dual of the season. KSU won 32-9.

Kent State had six wrestlers place in the MAC tournament and finished in ninth place in that tournament as a team.

Sophomore Enrique Munguia led the team with 22 wins. Graduate student Kody Komara totaled 20 wins. Kent State will lose eight wrestlers before the start of next season.

Andrassy said that it will be “very exciting to go into a year with younger kids.” The team will have eight to nine starting freshmen.

“We have very talented freshmen,” Andrassy said. “We’re going to need to physically mature and get our bodies to physically look like the ones that are in the national tournament and then we’re just going to keep working on getting better. We will have a very talented team next year but we’re going to be so young that I don’t really have any expectations for any of them.”

Andrassy said consistency will be important for future success.

“It’s also very easy as a coach to lose your mind at times because they’re very inconsistent,” he said. “As we train, we’ll have to work on our consistency and getting better.”

Munguia, freshman Keegan Knapp, who had 11 wins this season and freshman Blake Schaffer, who had 16 wins this season, will return for the 2023-24 season. Andrassy pointed them out as next season’s team leaders.

“I’m excited that we’re having a young team with talent,” Andrassy said. “Now, we just have to get all the talent out of them. We have to get them to physically mature because right now they look very young.”

John Hilber is a reporter. Contact him at [email protected].