April 30, 2005

Las Vegas, Nev.- Freshman B.J. Compton won three matches at the Las Vegas Convention Center on Thursday and Friday in an attempt to qualify for the U.S. National FILA Junior World Team.

The event, which features some of the top freestyle wrestlers is open to high school and college wrestlers ages 18-20. Compton, a freshman from Christiansburg, Va., went 3-2, garnering an opening round victory over Travis Merchado of California 7-0, 6-0. FILA, the governing body for the sport of wrestling internationally, recently changed the rules of scoring for freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling, and to win a match, a wrestler must win two of three periods.

Patrick Aleksanyan of California beat Compton 6-0, 7-0, sending him to the consolation bracket. In the consolations, Compton had lost the first period 4-2 before getting a fall in the second, 35 seconds into the period. The new rules still respect a fall as the ending of the match, regardless of periods won.

Compton beat Sean Carr of College Park, Md. before falling to Indiana's Reece Humphrey.