Apparently the Iowa seniors wanted to go out on as big of a bang as the Minnesota wrestlers did, as the Iowa Hawkeyes earned a 23-12 victory over the #1 ranked dual team the Minnesota Gophers, winning six of the nights ten bouts.
The dual started off at 165 where senior Nick Moore got off to a slow start against Minnesota backup Brandon Kingsley. Moore surrendered an opening takedown and then tied things with a pair of escapes. With the match tied two a peice in the second period, Moore caught the Gopher unaware and took him to his back for a fall to give Iowa an early 6-0 lead.
It was a lead the Hawkeyes would never relinquish. Iowa senior Mike Evans took the mat at 174, with him looking to take his second straight dual victory over Logan Storley. The only scoring in regulation was a pair of escapes so the match headed to sudden victory. It was there that Evans hit an aggressive double and took Storley to his seat, although Storley ended up rolling through, putting Evans on his back. After a video review, the takedown was awarded to Evans, with Mike earning the first swing match in the Hawkeyes favor on the night.
With a 9-0 lead Sammy Brooks went to work at 184 against Brett Pfarr in a match that some did consider a potential swing match. Brooks proved to be the superior wrestler as he was up 12-6, and then cut Pfarr to work for a major. Brooks probably wasted a little too much time on top in the match and never truly gave himself enough time to earn bonus points, but Iowa went out from 12-0 on the Gophers.
It was senior Scott Schiller that finally got Minnesota on the board with his 3-1 decision over Nathan Burak at 197. With the match tied late in the third period 1-1, Shiller hit a takedown with under ten second to earn the Gopher victory and put the team lead at 12-3.
Another Iowa senior then went to work as Bobby Telford put up a 6-4 decision over Micheal Kroells. Telford earned two takedowns in the match, but a costly late first period reversal made the match closer than it appeared. The reversal was the only offensive points by Kroells, but Iowa took a 15-3 in to the break.
Last year in the dual, everyone remembers that Sam Brancale not only put Thomas Gilman on his back, he pinned him. Gilman must’ve remembered too as he came out to win by technicall fall over true freshman Ethan Lizak at 125.That put the dual at 20-3 and Iowa’s largest lead of the night.
Minnesota scored back-to-back decisions from twin brothers Chris and Nick Dardanes at 133 and 141 to close the dual to 20-9. #1 ranked Chris used first and third period takedowns to beat All-American Cory Clark 5-3, and Nick Dadanes used a five point third period to pull out his win over Josh Dziewa.
Brandon Sorensen got things back in Iowa’s favor as he earned a 4-0 win over Jake Short at 149 to get a little revenge from this summer when Short beat Sorensen at Junior World Team trials. The win by the Iowa freshman put the team score at 23-9 heading the final match.
The final match of the night had it dramatics as well. Senior Mike Kelly went to take on senior Dylan Ness and after most were predicting this to be a match were Ness would earn a fall for Minnesota, Kelly had something to say otherwise. Kelly actually got out to a 4-1 lead over the All-American after two takedowns and a ride out to end the first. Kelly added a third takedown in the second for his largest lead at 6-3. It was then that Ness got a little more away from the funk and more to fundamentals and hit a double leg to close the match to 6-5. Ness then hit another big move in the third to go up 9-8 over Kelly and it had appeared that he had won by that score.
The refs went to the monitor, awarded Kelly a point for locked hands and restarted the match at 9-9 with a little under :30 to go. With Ness having riding time Kelly need to get an escape to tie the match, but after a technical violation Kelly put the match out of reach, and wound up losing 11-9.
It’s still a huge win for the Hawkeyes, and there is no doubt that they will officially move to #1 in all rankings (Intermat’s dual rankings was the lone ranking that had Iowa #2 in anything team-wise). Iowa still has conference duals against Maryland, Penn State, and Michigan, but if they take care of busniess with them they should be the #1 seed come national duals time. The Gophers, who are also in the national duals field, will surely be looking to avenge the loss they just took.
Iowa will head on a double dual road trip weekend as Friday then head to Pennsylvania to face a top 10 team in Penn State. Then they will head to Maryland for a Sunday dual before returning to Carver for senior night.
#2 IOWA 23 – #1 MINNESOTA 12
165: #7 Nick Moore (Iowa) pinned Brandon Kingsley (Minnesota), 4:33
174: #2 Mike Evans (Iowa) dec. #4 Logan Storley (Minnesota), 3-1 SV
184: #8 Sammy Brooks (Iowa) dec. #11 Brett Pfarr (Minnesota), 13-7
197: #6 Scott Schiller (Minnesota) dec. #3 Nathan Burak (Iowa), 3-1
285: #2 Bobby Telford (Iowa) dec. #13 Michael Kroells (Minnesota), 6-4
125: #5 Thomas Gilman (Iowa) tech. fall Ethan Lizak (Minnesota), 23-7
133: #1 Chris Dardanes (Minnesota) dec. #5 Cory Clark (Iowa), 5-3
141: #4 Nick Dardanes (Minnesota) dec. #5 Josh Dziewa (Iowa), 7-3
149: #2 Brandon Sorensen (Iowa) dec. Jake Short (Minnesota), 4-0
157: #1 Dylan Ness (Minnesota) dec. #15 Mike Kelly (Iowa), 11-9
[…] at #1 Minnesota 23-12 (6-0) In what was expected to be a battle for the #1 dual team ranking, Iowa came out and won, and in terms of it being the #1 vs. #2 team, by a pretty good margin. The dual opened with a […]