I'm not going to lie. I'm ticked!
I am tired of Iowa being better than us. I thought we had a lot of good things coming together going into the dual.
This match could've gone either way and had 1 of them gone a different way, we would've won this dual:
- Iowa pulled off two upsets by 2 points each
- Iowa got 12 of their 20 points by a total of 7 points
As you can see, it was very close. That's what makes it frustrating. It's like we were so close yet so far away.
Here are some very brief comments about each match.
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125: #7 Tyler Clark vs. #2 Charlie Falck
- Falck wins by decision 4-2 (ISU 0, Iowa 3)
- Not too surprising here. Falck is good
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133: #5 Nick Fanthorpe vs. Joe Slaton
- Fanthorpe wins by major decision 12-2 (ISU 4, Iowa 3)
- Slaton looked like crap. Don't know what the deal was, although the announcers were thinking it had to do with cutting weight.
- Fanthorpe got his redemption! Slaton had beat him twice last year and I honestly thought this match would be closer. Fanthrope just flat out dominated
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141: #2 Nick Gallick vs. #6 Alex Tsirtsis
- Tsirtsis wins by decision 4-2 (ISU 4, Iowa 6)
- Tsirtsis won at the last second as he got a takedown.
- They were locked up down on the mat and it looked like Gallick thought the match was over when there was 1 second left, as Gallick seemed to let his guard down.
- I have said this before, I am not all that impressed with Gallick this year. It seems like he just tries to do enough to win. Don't really know what was going on in his mind there
- I know Tsirtsis is tough, but when you're the #2 team in the nation going against #1, you need to win the matches you're favored to win.
- I'm not saying we would've won in OT for sure, but we gotta put ourselves in a position to win
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149: #11 Mitch Mueller vs. #1 Brent Metcalf
- Metcalf wins by tech fall 6:05 (25-10) (ISU 4, Iowa 11)
- No surprises here. I said that not getting majored was like a win here
- Mueller hit the wall in the 3rd, and Metcalf had a takedown clinic on Mueller
- Metcalf is probably the best wrestler in the nation at any weight. Nothing that anyone can really do
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157: #6 Cyler Sanderson vs. Matt Ballweg
- Sanderson wins by major decision 22-9 (ISU 8, Iowa 11)
- Cyler kept trying to turn Ballweg but he wouldn't go. Once it was clear Cyler wasn't getting the backpoints, going for the tech is pointless. A tech with no backpoints is just 4 team points which is the same as a major. You need backpoints to get the 5.
- Sanderson was aggressive, and did what he had to to put us in a good position
- At this point, I thought we were OK. With Reader, Varner, and Zabriskie left, I thought we'd get to 18 team points.
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165 #3 Jonathon Reader vs. #11 Ryan Morningstar
- Morningstar wins by decision 2-0 (ISU 8, Iowa 14)
- Reader didn't do a good job in this match. On his feet he didn't really go for any takedowns. When he was on the bottom, he tried to hard to get a reversal instead of an escape. Then when he needed an escape, he couldn't get one.
- Reader had opportunities in the 3rd period to take a 2-1 lead (at this point it was 1-0. Morningstar got another point for riding time). At the very least it would've force overtime.
- Reader has been a beast thus far, and I don't know what happened. He seemed to be too passive, and didn't really show any urgency.
- After losing this match, I knew we were likely done. It was the 2nd match we needed to win but didn't. There are now 4 matches left with us favored in only two. We needed to be at least tied here instead of down by 6
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174: #8 Duke Burk vs. #2 Jay Borschel
- Borschel wins by decision 6-2 (ISU 8, Iowa 17)
- Burk wrestled tough. Last time these two met, Burk got majored
- I didn't expect Burk to win, as Borschel is clearly the better wrestler, so this was a moral victory.
- By now, I am starting to pray to the Wrestling Gods for an upset at 184. Iowas been getting all the upsets the past two years, and I was hoping it'd be our turn.
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184: Jerome Ward vs. #3 Phil Keddy
- Keddy won by decision 3-2 (ISU 8, Iowa 20)
- Ward wrestled close. He's so defensive that I knew this could be a close match. I talked about this in the preview.
- Ward went for a shot when it was 1-0 and was visibly tired. Keddy got the takedown and Ward got away (3-2).
- Ward didn't really have a plan of attack on his feet and was pretty much stalling the entire time.
- I didn't expect Ward to win prior to the dual, but I was hoping that given the team score, Ward would've tried to be more aggressive and do more on his feet to put ISU in somewhat of a position to win the dual. Had he won, it would've been 11 to 17 with Varner and Z left.
- Can't hold too much against Ward as he wrestled tough. He has a lot of potential, and is pretty explosive. He just needs to utilize it to be more offensive than defensive.
- Going into the final two matches, we needed two pins. You can tie in a dual as there's no tie breaker.
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197: #1 Jake Varner vs. Luke Lofthouse
- Varner wins by major decision 13-3 (ISU 12, Iowa 20)
- Varner was in control the entire match and tried to turn Lofthouse
- Lofthouse basically stalled the entire time to avoid getting turned
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HWT: #2 David Zabriskie vs. Dan Erekson
- Zabriskie wins by decision 5-1 (ISU 15, Iowa 20)
- There was a scary moment as Erekson had Zabriskie on his back, but the ref either called out of bounds or a dangerous position.
- They weren't completley out of bounds, so if that was the call it was bad. If it was potentially dangerous I could see it, as Erekson had a chicken-wing type hold in there
Up Next:
- 12/13:Tri with North Dakota State and Dickinson State in Fargo, ND.
- We face Dickinson State at 3pm, and North Dakota State at 5pm.
Final Thoughts:
- Frustrated we lost to Iowa again
- Tired of seeing us get upset. We were favored in 6 of the 10 matches, yet we only won 4
- Our team needs to figure it out, learn from this, and move on. We have a good chance that we'll meet Iowa again at National Duals and we'll have a chance for payback.
- I hate Tom Brands. He's a tool
- Anyone up for a Fargo Roadtrip?
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