Division I colleges wrap up regular season, prepare for conference meets
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Craig Sesker (USA Wrestling)
02/28/2002
The milestones and the victories just keep coming for the Minnesota Gophers. Top-ranked Minnesota completed a perfect dual meet season with a 27-12 win over No. 4 Ohio State 27-12 on Sunday before 2,287 fans at the Sports Pavilion in Minneapolis. Minnesota, the National Duals champion, finished its first unbeaten dual season at 19-0 overall and 8-0 in the Big Ten. The Gophers have won a school-record 33 straight dual meets. Minnesota's Leroy Vega (125), Nate Baker (165) and Jacob Volkman (174) each won by fall. Baker stunned No. 7 John Clark, scoring the fall in 6:07 after trailing nearly the entire match. Minnesota's third-ranked Jared Lawrence beat No. 7 Keaton Anderson 7-3 at 149 while Gopher Luke Becker downed No. 10 Josh Janson 10-4 at 157. Ohio State won the final three bouts of the dual, including No. 4 Nick Preston's 6-4 win over No. 3 Owen Elzen at 197 and No. 2 Tommy Rowlands' 5-3 win over No. 4 Garrett Lowney at heavyweight. Minnesota, the defending national champions, will defend its Big Ten tournament title on March 9-10 in Champaign, Ill. Ohio State beat No. 22 Michigan State 20-13 on Friday. Jeff Ratliff (133) and Rowlands won by major decision for the Buckeyes. Second-ranked Michigan rolled to a 29-7 win over Michigan State on Sunday. Foley Dowd (133) won by technical fall for the Wolverines. Michael Kulczycki (149), Otto Olson (174) and Andrew Hrovat (184) won by major decision for Michigan. The third-ranked Iowa Hawkeyes finished their dual season with a 24-10 win at Illinois on Sunday. The Hawkeyes finished 16-4 overall and 6-2 in the Big Ten. Iowa won the featured bout at heavyweight with top-ranked Steve Mocco beating defending NCAA champion John Lockhart 3-1 in overtime. Mocco, a true freshman, is 31-1. His only loss was to Oklahoma's Leonce Crump at the National Duals. Fifth-ranked Oklahoma State won the final four matches to post a 24-12 Big 12 win at Nebraska on Friday. The Cowboys finished the dual season 20-3 while Nebraska fell to 8-9. It was the Huskers' first losing season since 1987-88. OSU trailed 12-9 before James Huml (heavyweight), Skylar Holman (125), Johnny Thompson (133) and Ronnie Delk (141) picked up wins for the Cowboys in the last four bouts. Holman beat defending Big 12 champ Jason Powell. "As far as wrestling hard, it was one of our best performances," NU coach Mark Manning said. "We wrestled well. There were a lot of positives that came out of this meet." "Nebraska's got a good team, they wrestled hard," OSU coach John Smith said. "I was a little concerned there for a while. It's good to get out of here with a win." Nebraska's top-ranked Bryan Snyder beat No. 4 Shane Roller 10-6 at 157 to improve to 27-0. Snyder is looking to become the first Husker to finish a season unbeaten. Snyder is 5-0 in his career against Roller, who scored the opening takedown before Snyder came back with four takedowns. "I am not really too excited about the way I wrestled," said Snyder, who won his 130th career match. "I just didn't wrestle well tonight. I have been in kind of a funk lately. I need to do something to get myself out of it. I will be all right, but it's always hard when you wrestle a guy a bunch of times." Sixth-ranked Oklahoma pounded No. 13 Arizona State 38-6 on Thursday in Norman. Arizona State's David Douglas, ranked third, beat No. 4 Witt Durden at 133 while No. 9 Nate Parker of OU beat No. 6 Eric Larkin at 141. Seventh-ranked Iowa State collected wins from seniors Cael Sanderson (197), Joe Heskett (165), Billy Maldonado (149) and Mark Knauer (heavyweight) to beat No. 17 Northern Iowa 25-12 on Sunday in Cedar Falls. ISU finished its dual season 17-5. UNI ends at 7-8. "It was a close match overall," ISU coach Bobby Douglas said. "There were several matches that could have gone either way. We've got a lot of work to do, but we have a lot of time to do it." Sanderson beat No. 11 Jason Payne by technical fall (23-7) to improve to 33-0 this season and 152-0 in his career. Sanderson, a three-time NCAA champion, is seeking to become the first wrestler to finish a four-year career unbeaten. "It was a good match," Sanderson said. "I felt good, but there are a lot of things I still have to work on - everything really." Lehigh's second-ranked Jon Trenge is the only college wrestler to go the distance with Sanderson this year, losing 16-5 and 6-1 to Sanderson. Northern Iowa sophomore Dylan Long knocked off ISU's Aaron Holker 12-9 at 141. Long is now ranked third and Holker is fifth.