Chattanooga senior Dean Pavlou led the Mocs’ wrestling team with a seventh-place finish at the 2013 Southern Scuffle, presented by Defense Soap, on Wednesday at McKenzie Arena.
Pavlou, competing at 141 pounds, defeated Penn State’s Bryan Pearsall (4-2) — UTC’s only win on the day — as Chattanooga finished 14th in the team standings with 31.5 points.
Penn State repeated as Scuffle Champs with 178.5 points, and No. 2 Oklahoma State finished in second with 158 points. No. 6 Missouri (147.5), No. 3 Minnesota (139.5) and No. 8 Cornell (136.0) rounded out the top five in team standings.
The Mocs went 0-3 in the opening consolation matches Saturday. Senior Niko Brown, competing at 197, and sophomores Nick Soto (125) and Kevin Malone (285) all lost their first match on Day 2.
UTC set another single-day high with 2,856 fans in attendance, and the two-day attendance total — 5,399 — was a 23 percent increase from last year’s inaugural tournament on Chattanooga’s campus.
The Mocs return to action on Sunday when they host No. 6 Illinois at 2 p.m. inside Maclellan Gymnasium.