Through the first day of the NCAA Wrestling Championships, Binghamton’s 184-pound junior Jack McKeever and senior heavyweight Tyler Deuel split their matches to open action on Thursday.

Entering competition as a 13th seed, Deuel opened his NCAA appearance with a victory over his opponent out of Pittsburgh in redshirt freshman Ryan Solomon. The EIWA champion took a riding time advantage against the Panther en route to an 8-3 first-round win. In his second match later that night, Deuel went up against fourth-seeded junior Austin Marsden of Oklahoma State. Marsden — the Big 12 Conference champion — proved to be a challenge for the heavyweight. After an early stalling warning against Deuel, his Cowboy opponent took a dominating advantage in riding time and takedowns to hand Deuel his first loss since Jan. 11 by a margin of 12-4.

After posting a 1-1 record on the day, Binghamton’s star wrestler remains in competition. Deuel is set to take on either Bobby Telford of Iowa or South Dakota State’s JJ Everard in a consolation match today, with the time to be determined.

McKeever, on the other hand, saw his season come to an end Thursday. In the early afternoon session, McKeever lost, 4-0, in a rematch against Wyoming sophomore Ben Stroh. In the duo’s regular-season bout on Nov. 29, Stroh topped McKeever, 2-0. In his second match of the day, McKeever faced the 11th seed in Minnesota’s Brett Pfarr and fell, 11-4, after failing to come back from Pfarr’s early score. Through his junior season, McKeever posted a 23-16 record.