In addition to their 30-6 win over UNI on Saturday night, the Huskers also sent a set of seven freshmen and backups to the Soldier Salute hosted by Iowa in Coralville this weekend.
Leading the way for Nebraska
was true freshman Cade Ziola at heavyweight. The former Omaha Skutt standout, Ziola won three matches to make it to the final — he beat Minnesota’s Bennett Tabor in the quarters and downed #15 Spencer Lanosga of Navy in the semis.
After a 16-1 win via technical fall in his opening match against Iowa State’s McCrae Hagarty, Ziola faced Tabor in the quarters. Ziola fell to Tabor in the Bison Open final 6-2 in November, but he flipped the script on Saturday with a 4-2 decision win.
Against Lanosga, Ziola was giving up over 60 pounds — Lanosga weighed in at 282.6 pounds, while Ziola came in at 221.8 on the scale. It didn’t matter though, as Ziola was able to get in on a low shot in sudden victory for the 4-1 win.
In the final, Ziola faced #10 Koy Hopke of Minnesota — Ziola beat Hopke 8-7 at the Bison Open earlier in the season.
In this match, the two wrestled a scoreless first period before Ziola hit a switch on the start of the second for the reversal before immediately giving up the escape.
Hopke then scored an escape to start the third period to tie the match at 2-2. The redshirt freshman for Minnesota then re-attacked off a Ziola low shot for the match’s only takedown in the third period. Ziola put on the pace late but was unable to get the equalizer, dropping the match 5-3.
Going 3-1 on the weekend for his 2nd-place finish, Ziola is now 7-3 on the year. And if you were keeping score between Ziola and the Minnesota heavies — Ziola beat Hopke and lost to Tabor at the Bison Open, then beat Tabor and lost to Hopke at the Soldier Salute.
Ziola is 2-1 in duals and has secured 23 takedowns on the year and given up just three.
Also a true freshman, 5-seed Ty Eise competed at 174 and made it to the semifinal round. Eise beat Iowa’s Leister Bowling 4-0 in his first match before downing 4-seed Nicholas Fea of North Carolina 11-2 by major decision. Eise then fell to #9 Danny Wask of Navy 8-2 in the semis before medically forfeiting out for 6th place.
Also finding the medal stand was junior Hayden Mills at 133 pounds. Mills lost his first match 8-1 to 6-seed Gage Walker of Missouri before winning three in a row on the back side — including a 17-2 tech over Iowa’s Anthony Larezzola. Mills then lost to 2-seed Matthew Botello of North Carolina via pinfall before medically forfeiting the 5th-place match to place sixth.
True freshmen Abdi Unle (125 pounds) and Nikade Zinkin (149) both went 1-2 on the weekend, while sophomores Scott Robertson (149) and Ethan DeLeon (174) each went 1-2 as well.
