Who: #8 Iowa State vs. #18 Wisconsin
Date: Sunday February 22nd, 2015
Time: 2:00 PM – Central
Location: Ames, IA
Online: Cyclones.tv
#8 Iowa State Cyclones 10-2
125- Kyle Larson
133- #3 Earl Hall
141- Dante Rodriguez
149- #12 Gabe Moreno
157- Luke Goettl
165- #3 Mike Moreno
174- #12 Tanner Weatherman
184- #16 Lelund Weatherspoon
197- #2 Kyven Gadson
285- Quean Smith
#18 Wisconsin Badgers
125- Johnny Jimenez
133- #7 Ryan Taylor
141- Jesse Theilke
149- Rylan Lubeck
157- Jarod Donar
165- #2 Isaac Jordan
174- Frank Cousins
184- #20 Ricky Robertson
197- #14 Timmy McCall
285- #2 Conner Medbery
This Sunday Iowa State will look to close out the regular season against the Wisconsin Badgers. The Cyclones are riding a four match dual winning streak, with their last loss coming to Oklahoma State almost a month ago. Since that loss the Cyclones have won all four of their duals by at least eight points, with their closest win coming at Oklahoma.
The Cyclones have also had some big past few weeks from Dante Rodrgiuez (141) and Gabe Moreno (149) with the pair each scoring a big upset in the past few weekends. Rodriguez upset Mike Morales of West Virginia, which jumped him into the Flo rankings at #20. The younger Moreno is coming off a big win over former top ten ranked wrestler Christian Pagdilao to close out the Arizona State dual.
The match of the meet just may be Earl Hall vs Ryan Taylor at 133. Both wrestlers look like night and day from their former selves a year ago when both were at 125. Last year Hall caught fire to place 8th at the NCAA and Taylor fizzled out to miss the podium. Now with both at 133, Hall is one of the highest ranked 133 in the nation, and Taylor just got done winning by technical fall over one of the top eight wrestlers in the nation (Zane Richards). This match just very well might be worth the price of admission.
Wisconsin has had another wrestler, Isaac Jordan, move up a weight class and have high level of success. Jordan is currently the #2 ranked wrestler according to InterMat, and All-American Mike Moreno is right behind him at #3. Jordan only has one loss on the year, which was to top 20 ranked Jesse Stafford of Air Force. This is another match where fans should expect a battle.
Kyven Gadson should have a good match with #15 Timmy McCall at 197, despite the large gap between the two wrestlers’ rankings. Back in December McCall made a surprise run to the Midlands finals where he lost to Iowa’s Nathan Burak. Since finishing runner-up at that tournament, McCall has had a rough patch of his season losing four of his last six including two straight upsets. Gadson has been known to start matches slow, which can be dangerous against a wrestler like McCall who can capitalize on an early mistake and then make it hard to climb back into the match.
The final ranked battle will be between Lelund Weatherspoon and Ricky Robertson at 184. Weatherspoon came into last weekend with seven match winning streak before falling to top ten ranked Blake Stauffer. Weatherspoon then rebounded with a 10-3 win over Lux of Northern Iowa. Robertson went 7-1 in Big Ten dual compeition, and four of his six losses have come from the #9, 10, and 11th ranked wrestlers.
Wisconsin’s other #2 ranked wrestler Connor Medbery has really emerged as a title contender after missing the stand as a sophomore. Medbery is 6-0 in duals in 2015, and has three bonus wins in that stretch. Quean Smith is riding a bit of a rough patch going 2-5 in his last seven matches.