by Jeff Beshey
A record breaking crowd of over 13,000 fans showed up at Williams Arena on Sunday to watch number one Iowa and number two Minnesota compete. The meet featured 10 wrestlers ranked in the top five in the nation.
The meet started at 141 pounds with Minnesota's Chad Erikson scoring points first with a first period takedown against Iowa's Doug Schwab. After the two relaxed a bit, Schwab took over and by the third period, was able to take down Erikson at will. Schwab, the returning 141 pound national champion, got a major decision.
One of the afternoon's key matchups was at 149 pounds -- Iowa's Mike Zadick against Minnesota's Jared Lawrence. Lawrence seemed to control every aspect of the match including takedowns and the top position. Lawrence racked up three-and-a-half minutes of riding time enroute to a 8-4 decision.
In the most exciting match of the afternoon, Minnesota's Luke Becker (157 pounds) took defending national champion T.J. Williams down with just seconds remaining in the match to go ahead by a point, only to have a controversial reversal called at the buzzer to give Williams the one point victory.
"I didn't want to lose. I went out there to win," said Becker, "I went out there to wrestle as hard as I could for seven minutes -- I think that's what I did. I didn't get the win in the end but now I know where I'm at, I know where I'm coming from and I know where I want to be."
Brad Pike came back for Minnesota at 165 pounds nearly scoring a major decision over Matt Anderson 11-4.
At 184 pounds, Minnesota's Brandon Eggum tied the team score at 10 after dominating Jessman Smith 15-6. Eggum scored six takedowns in his match including four in the first period.
Minnesota took their only lead of the meet after Owen Elzen stopped Lee Weber 8-4.
Iowa turned the tide with the heavyweight match as Iowa's #3 Wes Hand upset Minnesota's #1 Brock Lesnar. One mistake by Lesnar was the difference in the match. "He shot in and I countered him," said Hand, "as simple as that." In the first period, Lesnar found himself on his back just long enough to get two back points awarded to Hand. After that Hand was able to fend off Lesnar for a 5-3 decision.
"They had the momentum going," said Iowa Head Coach Jim Zalesky, "we had to try and turn it around. Hand was able to turn it around in a match they were favored to win. That was a big momentum builder for us."
When asked how Lesnar will take this loss, Gopher Head Coach J Robinson responded, "Brock is in a stiuation where it's been great and he's got all this publicity, now he's on the other side, now it's up to Brock."
The win for Hand was nice, but he's not satisfied, "It's not the big one, it's not the one I want. The one I want is the national title," said Hand, "I'll keep improving from now until then."
At 125 pounds, Minnesota's Leroy Vega came out strong scoring three first period takedowns against Iowa's Jody Strittmatter and led 6-3 after the first period. Strittmatter battled back and once he got on top of Vega, he was able to control the match. Vega gave up a second and third period takedown as well as a stalling point to fall to Strittmatter 9-6.
It [the momentum] went with Vega and Brock -- thats where it got away," said coach Robinson, "It's disappointing -- its not so much the loss, but the way half of our guys wrestled, half of our guys went out there and wrestled hard and that's what we think is really important."
Neither Coach was particularly happy with their team's overall performance, "We've got some good individuals that wrestled well and we've got some guys that didn't wrestle well," said Zalesky.
Next up for the Gophers and the Hawkeyes is the Big Ten Tournament on March 4-5 at West Lafayette, IN.