Blaze and McEnelly win semifinals, assuring U.S. men eight medals at U20 Worlds

SAMOKOV, Bulgaria - Team USA’s strong performance in men’s freestyle continued on Tuesday night in Samokov, Bulgaria as Marcus Blaze and Max McEnelly won semifinal matches to lock up no worse than eight medals at the U20 World Championships.

Blaze reached the 61kg finals after beating tricky UWW athlete Magomedkhan Magamedkhanov 15-4, while McEnelly used a late takedown to fight off Iran’s Abolfazi Rahmani at 86kg.

Blaze, an incoming freshman at Penn State, will take on Iran’s Ahora Khateri, who was a 3-1 winner over UWW athlete Adlan Saitiev. Both Blaze and Khateri have seen age group success at the world level. Blaze won a U17 title at 55kg in 2023 and was the silver medalist at 61kg at last year’s U20 championships. Khateri was also a U17 world champion in 2023, but it came at 45kg.

McEnelly scored a go-ahead takedown with 18 seconds left and then gave up a late caution point to tie the bout against Rahmani, but it didn’t matter as McEnelly held criteria with the most number of higher scoring actions – his two two-point moves were the difference.

An All-American this past college season as a redshirt freshman at Minnesota, McEnelly was a U17 bronze medalst at the 2022 world championships in Rome.

Not much is known about McEnelly’s opponent – UWW athlete Bozigit Islamgereev. He has no recorded international results in UWW’s official historical database. Islamereev defeated Turkiye's Ahmet Yagan 5-1 in the other semifinal at 86kg.

On the women’s side, Aubre Krazer fell in the semifinals at 59kg to reigning U20 world champion Sakura Onishi 10-0. Onishi just had too much for Krazer, who was making her first age-group world championships appearance. Krazer will face either China’s Yifan Zhu or Ukraine’s Mariia Miziurko for bronze, which will be decided after Wednesday morning’s repechage. Onishi will take on Sweden’s Karin Samuelsson in the finals.

American Jordyn Fouse was pulled back into medal contention after Japan’s Ray Hoshino rallied to pin Mongolia’s Odzaya Erdenebat in the 68kg semifinals. Fouse felt to Hoshino in the first session. Fouse will face 2024 U20 world silver medalist Ayse Erkan of Turkiye. Erkhan lost to Hoshino in the first round. Hoshino will face India’s Srishti in the finals.

Carissa Qureshi’s tournament came to an end after Norway’s Felicitas Domajeva beat Kazakhstan’s Anna Stratan 12-2 in the semifinals at 57 pounds. Qureshi fell to Stratan in the quarterfinals. Domajeva will face India’s Tapsya in the final.