Hartmann, seeded eighth in the Scuffle, placed in a tournament for the third time this season. He has placed among the top six now in every tournament he's entered in 2012-13. Duke's 16th-place finish is an improvement of three places from a season ago.
After falling to the tournament's top seed and third-ranked Quentin Wright in the championship quarterfinals, Hartmann bounced back with a pair of victories in the consolation bracket to ensure a top-six finish.
Hartmann, improving to 17-7 for the year overall, opened the day with a hard-fought 2-0 decision over The Citadel's Marshall Haas. He came right back with a commanding performance in the consolation quarterfinals, beating Joshua Mohr of Air Force, 6-1. Fighting for a spot in the consolation championship bout, the Port Orchard, Wash., native battled Ohio's Phillip Wellington tough, but came up just short in a 4-2 decision.
Duke's wins leader returned to the mat in the evening for the medal round against Minnesota's Scott Schiller. The Gophers' redshirt sophomore handed Hartmann just his seventh loss of the season with an 8-3 decision.
The Blue Devils open conference dual action Sunday, Jan. 6 at Virginia Tech at 2 p.m. Live scoring will be available for the match via trackwrestling.com. Full details will be available at GoDuke.com.
Conner Hartmann Results - Southern Scuffle
Champ. Round 3 - Conner Hartmann (Duke ) won by decision over Craig Scott (Cornell ) (Dec 6-2)
Quarterfinal - Quentin Wright (Penn State) won by decision over Conner Hartmann (Duke ) (Dec 9-2)
Cons. Round 6 - Conner Hartmann (Duke ) won by decision over Marshall Haas (The Citadel) (Dec 2-0)
Cons. Round 7 - Conner Hartmann (Duke ) won by decision over Joshua Mohr (Air Force) (Dec 6-1)
Cons. Semi - Phillip Wellington (Ohio ) won by decision over Conner Hartmann (Duke ) (Dec 4-2)
5th Place Match - Scott Schiller (Minnesota) won by decision over Conner Hartmann (Duke ) (Dec 8-3)
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