It was a big night for Mike Kelly and the Iowa Hawkeyes. For starters it was the first time that the Rutgers had ever wrestled a Big Ten dual, and it was also in front of their largest crowd ever.
But none of that had any effect on senior Mike Kelly who came out and picked up a 4-0 win over a returning All-American Anthony Perrotti to notch his 50th career win. Kelly built his win on a 2-0 first period where he took Perrotti down and rode him for almost a minute, he picked up another escape and added a riding time point to get to the final score of 4-0.
Thomas Gilman started the dual off at 125 with a technical fall 4 (so he didn’t score back points). Five first period takedowns put Gilman up 10-4, and he never looked back from there, finishing 25-10.
Midlands champion Cory Clark got the night off at 133 and in his stead we got our first look at Phil Laux on the year. Laux competed in several opens at 125 last season and not only was this his first dual start of the year, it was also his first competition. DelVecchio won by a score of 10-3. Late in the match with a big lead DelVecchio cut Laux to score some more points. Laux fought off DelVecchio to keep the match at just a decision.
At 141 Rutgers got their first ever Big Ten dual match victory when Anthony Ashnault upset Josh Dziewa 6-4 and for the first time took the dual lead 6-4 over the Hawkeyes.
The Hawkeyes got back on track at 149 when redshirt freshman Brandon Sorensen took the mat and mounted a 17-5 major decision to put the Hawkeyes back on top 8-4 and that started a string of five straight wins.
With the Kelly win at 157, Nick Moore took the mat at 165 and started off strong. Moore got an initial takedown and then added two near fall points to go up 4-0 over Gravinia. Moore got a little sloppy in the second giving up a takedown off an initial escape. Moore corrected his mistake by getting out and getting another takedown to make it 8-2. Moore really poured it on in the second winning 16-4 to put Iowa’s team lead at 15-6.
Senior Mike Evans came out and put up a 5-0 decision over Phil Bakuckas, to put the match clinching dual in Sammy Brooks hands at 184. Brooks did just that as he picked up a second period fall, off of a tilt to seal the dual 24-6 with two matches remaining.
At 197 Iowa continued to use Kris Klapprodt and he fell to Andrew Campolattano 8-5 to put the dual at 24-9. Bobby Telford ended the dual with a 6-2 win in his top ten matchup over Billy Smith at 285 and Iowa won with a final score of 27-9.
Some of the takeaways from the dual are the lightweights performed particularly well. Gilman and Sorensen pushed the pace and won their matches by large margins. Gilman and Sorensen both had a match at Midlands where they looked tentative (Gilman’s final against Dance, Sorensen’s semifinal against Habat) and tonight was a good sign that they are working on correcting those mistakes.
Kelly won a match against a returning All-American and appears to be “the guy” at this weight for the Hawkeyes, as he was coming off a pretty good Midlands performance where he took 3rd.
While Nick Moore didn’t look like he was going to have the greatest match, in the end he reminded us how easy he can make it look as he racked up points in bunches.
Sammy Brooks continued to be an aggressive force in his match, even though like Moore he also surrendered a takedown, Brooks was because he was trying to force action. Brooks continues to look like a future team leader with the way he wrestles (if he already isn’t considered one now).
The Hawkeyes will face Ohio State on Sunday with the dual getting underway at 1:00 PM (CT) in Columbus, Ohio,
#2 Iowa 27, #24 Rutgers 9
125 – #4 Thomas Gilman (Iowa) tech fall Sean McCabe (Rutgers), 25-10; 4-0
133 – Scott DelVecchio (Rutgers) dec. Phillip Laux (Iowa), 10-3; 4-3
141 – #11 Anthony Ashnault (Rutgers) dec. #6 Josh Dziewa (Iowa), 3-1; 4-6
149 – #10 Brandon Sorenson (Iowa) major dec. Ken Theobold (Rutgers), 18-5; 8-6
157 – Mike Kelly (Iowa) dec. #13 Anthony Perrotti (Rutgers), 4-0; 11-6
165 – #7 Nick Moore (Iowa) major dec. Nick Gravina (Rutgers), 16-4; 15-6
174 – #2 Mike Evans (Iowa) dec. Phil Bukuckas (Rutgers), 5-0; 18-6
184 – #8 Sammy Brooks (Iowa) pinned Hayden Hrymach (Rutgers), 3:52; 24-6
197 – Andrew Campolattano (Rutgers) dec. Kris Klapprodt (Iowa), 8-5; 24-9
285 – #3 Bobby Telford (Iowa) dec. #9 Billy Smith (Rutgers), 6-2; 27-9
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