By Jordan Hansen
NEW YORK — After a bloody first round that saw three Iowa wrestlers head to the consolation bracket after just their first matches, the Hawkeyes were able to recover in the second session — at least slightly — and pushed five wrestlers into the quarterfinals.
Iowa is tied for fifth with Missouri and Virginia Tech in the team race, with each school scoring 17.5 points.
Penn State leads the championships with 27.5 points and is closely followed by Ohio State and Oklahoma State, which are tied for second with 24 points. Nebraska is in fourth with 20.
“There was some good and some bad, and we’re going to focus on the good,” Iowa head coach Tom Brands said. “That’s what’s going to keep us in the team race, and that’s what’s going to keep us in the personal-accolades race.”
Still alive in the winners bracket are No. 4 Thomas Gilman (125), No. 2 Cory Clark (133), No. 2 Brandon Sorensen (149), No. 2 Sammy Brooks (184), and No. 4 Nathan Burak (197).
Gilman has been Iowa’s most dominate wrestler of the tournament, winning his first match with a 24-8 technical fall and his second by 12-4 major decision over Nebraska’s Tim Lambert.
That win put him in the quarterfinal against Oklahoma’s fifth-seeded Ryan Millhof.
“I got to keep moving forward. I got a savvy wrestler [next], and the pace has to be even higher,” Gilman said. “I can’t let the pace be slow or dictate things. Can’t let him hang around and strategize.”
Strategy, however, is what kept Brooks, Clark, and Sorensen in each of their respective second-round matches. Clark got a hard-fought 6-2 win against Northern Iowa’s Josh Alber, while Sorensen narrowly beat Bucknell’s Victor Lopez.
Brooks had to climb back from an early 4-2 deficit to tally a 10-8 win, and Brands praised his offensive capabilities after the match.
“He was a little anxious,” Brands said. “He got calmed down and got back … to the things he does well. He’s got a lot of weapons he score with, and he showed that today.”
While it also took a little while for Burak to calm down, once he did, he got on quite a roll. He seemed a bit blindsided by Northern Colorado’s Trent Noon in the first round, and it took him until the second sudden-victory period to get the winning takedown.
In his next match — a solid 8-2 win over West Virginia’s Jacob Smith — Burak hit his offense early, something he sometimes struggles with.
The lone senior left in the winners bracket for Iowa, Burak knows he doesn’t have much time remaining in his wrestling career.
“I made the quarterfinals the last two years and lost,” Burak said. “I have to be ready to go. If I can wrestle my style, no one can beat me.”
The Hawkeyes also have two wrestlers alive in the consolation bracket — 13-seeded 157-pounder Edwin Cooper Jr. and 13-seed 174-pounder Alex Meyer.
Meyer recovered from a first-round loss to upset North Carolina’s fourth-seeded Ethan Ramos. Cooper, after winning his first match, was pinned in just 1:11 by No. 4 Ian Miller (Kent State).
There is quite a bit of work for Iowa to get back in contention for a national team title, and Brands was quick to bring up just how little of the tournament had actually been wrestled to this point.
“We just have to keep moving forward — we have two more days,” Brands said. “We’re just a third of the way done.”
Follow @JordyHansen for Iowa wrestling news, updates and analysis.
