Zeke Moisey

West Virginia freshman Zeke Moisey, seen here during his senior season at Bethlehem Catholic, has reached the 125-pound final of the NCAA Division I wrestling tournament in St. Louis.

(lehighvalleylive photo | Stephen Flood)

Budweiser no longer stands as the toast of St. Louis.

Zeke Moisey does.

Instead of a tall cold one, the new toast of the old town here along the Mississippi River is a short, very red-hot one wearing a West Virginia singlet.

Moisey's 52-second pin of Iowa's Thomas Gilman in a 125-pound semifinal Friday night in front of a roaring Scottrade Center crowd suddenly in love with a new hero continued one of the most remarkable runs in NCAA Division I wrestling history - an unseeded true freshman making the NCAA final.

"It really hasn't sunk in yet," said Moisey, who just a year ago was celebrating a PIAA Class AA 126-pound championship at Bethlehem Catholic. "It's such an awesome feeling."

Moisey is the first unseeded wrestler to reach the final since Carl Fronhofer, the current Columbia University coach, did so at 174 pounds for Pittsburgh in 2003. As for the last unseeded true freshman to make the final, the books don't go back that far.

In order, Moisey defeated the No. 15 seed, the No. 2 seed, the No. 7 seed and now the No. 6 seed to make the final - no easy path, no studs knocked out ahead of him. Instead, Moisey was knocking out the studs.

But none of the earlier wins could match the semifinal one.

When Gilman's shoulders stuck to the mat, with the Iowa sophomore wrapped in a cradle so tight an anaconda couldn't have improved on it, the referee's slap of the mat unleashed a tsunami of noise from the deliriously delighted crowd as Moisey entered NCAA wrestling history.

"The crowd was loud before the match," Moisey said. "I love wrestling in front of crowds, it gets me really pumped up."

Before the match, interestingly, though, in the noisy arena, Moisey sat quietly at matside, not bouncing around like most wrestlers do.

That was the calm before the storm Moisey unleashed on Gilman.

"I went right out and I knew I wanted to be offensive tonight," Moisey said.

Offensive? More like a blitzkrieg.

Moisey was in on a leg before Gilman even knew what was happening.

"I got in on my shot right away and was able to finish my first takedown," Moisey said.

A Gilman escape followed, and then what happened next would be familiar to every Lehigh Valley wrestling fan.

"I figured I'd keep being offensive, and I got in another shot and (Gilman) kept his knee too close to his head. Been hitting that move since high school, so I knew it was going to work."

Moisey went in for a sweep single, saw Gilman's head near his knee dangling like low-harvest fruit, hit the cradle and cranked the Hawkeye to his back, where there was no escape.

The pin might have startled local fans, though, because while Moisey was dominant at Becahi and could tilt wrestlers, he wasn't known as a pinner.

"You might never have seen me pin," said Moisey to this writer on the first day of the NCAAs, which, while an exaggeration, had truth in it. "I have gotten a lot better on top. That's one of the biggest differences in my game since I was in high school."

Just ask Gilman how much Moisey has improved.

And Moisey can win in different ways now, too. In his wins over Nahshon Garrett of Cornell (No. 2 seed) and Eddie Klimara of Oklahoma State (No. 7) Moisey wrestled deliberately and wanted to dictate a slower pace.

Against Gilman, the Becahi graduate was about as deliberate and slow as a tornado on speed. But Moisey said the different approach not due to anything the Hawkeye did.

"No, not really," Moisey said. "We really didn't even scout him very much. So I just wanted to go out there and do what I did instead of focusing on what he did. So I just did what I thought I could do."

Speaking of what Moisey thought he could do in St. Louis, he said earlier Friday he wanted to be a four-time All-American, which he can be, and he said he was inspired by a Bethlehem Catholic teammate.

"Seeing (Lehigh's) Darian Cruz go out there and All-American as a true freshman last year (Cruz was seventh at 125) gave me the confidence to be able to do the same thing," Moisey said. "We were workout partners for four years in a row. So seeing him be able to do that, I knew I'd be able to do that, also."

Done that and more.

And it's all so improbable, which is what makes it so thrilling. The vibe that roared through the Scottrade Center after Moisey's pin excited even veteran, cynical types on press row who said they'd never heard a louder arena.

There were reasons to yell. Zeke Moisey in a national final? A true freshman from a school without an All-American since 2007 and a finalist since 2005, and pinning an opponent from one of the sport's legendary dynasties? It's like a Tie-fighter defeating the Death Star.

Oh, that happened, right - is Zeke Moisey's middle name Luke, by any chance?

Actually, the biggest explosion Moisey could set off in St. Louis would be winning the national final Saturday night (8 p.m. EDT) against No. 4 seed Nathan Tomasello of Ohio State, who defeated No. 1 seed Alan Waters of Missouri 4-2 in the other semifinal.

"I wrestled him twice this year," Moisey said. "First time didn't go so well (a 19-6 loss at the Michigan State Open Nov. 2). Second time I definitely did better than the first time (15-10 at Las Vegas Dec. 5). I took him down two or three times and I think we're going to do even better against him tomorrow."

No one would bet against it, even if Moisey did enter the tournament with 13 losses.

"I did have 13 losses," Moisey said. "I think I peaked at the right time, honestly. A lot of those losses I think I should have won or I could have won, and I think some of that comes with experience. Being a true freshman I didn't have that much experience. I wasn't that mat-smart. But as the year progressed, my mat smarts kept on getting better, and I just kept on getting better. So I peaked at the right time."

There's one more peak to climb now, of course, but it may be that 13 is a lucky number for Lehigh Valley wrestlers this March.

After all, Nazareth's Tyson Klump won a 106-pound Pennsylvania state championship that, at its level, seemed as utterly improbable as Moisey's run to the finals ... and Klump entered states with 13 losses, too.

Lucky 13? Why not? Moisey is making his own luck with the kind of wrestling that would scare away any potential black cat to walk across his path. He's in the proverbial zone, hot as a sidewalk in July, and shining brightly on a national stage in front of a crowd who loves him.

Beat it, Bud -- Zeke Moisey is the new toast of St. Louis.

Brad Wilson may be reached at bwilson@express-times.com. Follow him on Twitter @bradwsports.