“I beat [Hoy] in the nationals last year,” Rechul said. “I broke mentally—there was a lot of pressure on me.”

Rechul went down four points early and was forced to play catch up.

In the consolation, Rechul gave up two points with 10 seconds left in the first period and was once again forced to come from behind. Although he was able to bring down Steele in the subsequent round, it was too little, too late.

Despite the losses, Rechul had some good matches, including a 9-7 win over No. 8 Eric Webb of Oregon in the quarters, and No. 12 ranking will likely remain unchanged.

“I’m not completely dissatisfied,” Rechul said. “I have some clear cut things that I have to work on.”

Rechul’s losses can once again be attributed to his own mistakes, not to the strengths of his opponents.

“Sometimes I wish there was a guy who could really beat me up, so I could say, ‘He’s better than me,’” Rechul said. “It’s frustrating losing to guys you know you can beat.”

Weiss hinted that Rechul’s performance may be a blessing in disguise.

“It’s a good wake up call,” Weiss said. “We have to work on getting the lead early, because it’s hard to play catch up in college.”

O’Donnell got a bit a wake up call himself in his second-round match.

Leading 2-0 going into the final eight seconds of the match, O’Donnell was taken down in a fluky move by Arizona State University’s Nick Frost. Frost won 3-2 in match almost entirely controlled by O’Donnell.

“It was a perfect example of how you have to keep working for the whole match,” Rechul said.

Instead of being conservative, O’Donnell tried to score more points at the match’s end and got burned.

“The tables didn’t turn his way,” Rechul said.

Weiss was pleased with Lee’s performance.