By Courtney Baumann | [email protected]
Although Iowa lost its wrestling dual meet against Penn State on Jan. 20 in Carver-Hawkeye, 26-11, Iowa was closer than the final score suggests.
Five of the 10 matches on the night were decided by two or fewer points, while only three wrestlers between the two teams were awarded bonus points.
Seniors Thomas Gilman and Alex Meyer both won their close calls. Gilman took a 3-2 victory over No. 3 Nick Suriano, and Meyer earned a 7-5 decision over Junior World champion Mark Hall, whose redshirt was pulled for the match.
However, the Hawkeyes were also on the losing end of those tightly fought matches. Three Iowa wrestlers – Topher Carton, Brandon Sorensen, and Cash Wilcke – lost their matches 8-6, 9-8, and 8-7.
Both Sorensen and Wilcke lost their matches in the second tiebreaker round. Sorensen, the No. 3 149-pounder, lost to No. 1 Zain Retherford, and he is now 0-3 against Retherford in his career. While the match was an improvement on how he has wrestled Retherford in the past, neither Sorensen nor Iowa wrestling head coach Tom Brands is one for moral victories.
“If you talk about moral victories with Sorensen, it showed he can escape, it showed he can take Zain Retherford down. He’s not about moral victories,” Brands said. “I saw him … during the break, and I liked what I saw. It was a guy up there who wasn’t about a moral victory.”
The last time Sorensen and Retherford faced each other was the NCAA championship, in which the Penn State wrestler came out victorious with a 10-1 major decision. Before that, it was the Big Ten Championship title bout where Retherford posted a 4-0 decision.
Friday night was the closest the two have wrestled and Penn State head coach Cael Sanderson was impressed by what he saw from both wrestlers at 149.
“Zain’s probably the toughest kid I’ve ever met. You could tell he kind of wasn’t feeling great, I shouldn’t say that to take anything away from Sorensen, but he just found a way to win the match,” Sanderson said. “Sorensen did a great job. You always expect that Iowa’s very good at what they do, in shutting you down.”
While not necessarily satisfied with Sorensen’s match, it seemed as though Brands was even less pleased with the way Wilcke wrestled during his sudden victory and tiebreaker rounds.
Rather than making a choice and sticking to it like Sorensen did, Brands said Wilcke was
“Wilcke rode him [Matt McCutcheon] down to 11 seconds, he rode him for 19 seconds, then the guy got to his feet and he just let him go,” Brands said. “Sorensen’s choice… it was a decision he made. It didn’t work out but at least it was a decision. It was a direction… Wilcke made a decision, too, but 19 seconds into that decision just cut the guy.”
Gilman, although he was one of just three Iowa wrestlers to win a match against Penn State, was not happy with his performance against Suriano, a formerly undefeated true freshman.
“I danced with him. I danced with him, that’s all I’ve got to say about it,” Gilman said. “He was running around the mat and I was chasing him a little bit. I don’t think there was a corner of the mat we didn’t touch… I needed to get a hold of him, pull him in, and pull him down. I need to assert my authority more than going out there and dancing.”
