Week One of B1G dual season is in the books and were on to Week Two!
Week One Recap
Michigan demolished little brother 43-3. It was ugly.
Northwestern dispatched the Terps 27-12. The match of note was a nice 4-2 upset win for the Wildcats #23 ranked 133# Sean Spidle over #12 Braxton Brown.
Iowa beat on their neighbor Wisconsin 23-12. Another 133# upset had the Badgers #14 Zan Fugitt beating #4 ranked Drake Ayala. Best match of the dual was #5 Ben Kueter beating #9 Braxton Amos in sudden victory for the Hawks.
Penn State smoked rugster 46-0.
Minnesota beat Illinois 27-9. There was a scary moment as Illinois Kannon Webster suffered what appeared to be a severe concussion to the point where he was unable to stand unassisted. I hope he’s okay. Two small upsets by the Gophers cushioned the victory as #26Drew Roberts beat #20 Michael Gioffre at 149 and the best match of the dual had #22 Ethan Riddle come back in the 3rd from being down 6-0 to beat #19 Collin Kelly 11-8 in sudden victory.
Ohio State beat their football nemesis Indiana 45-0.
Wisconsin beat Maryland 28-13 despite Terrapin and #14 ranked Carter Young taking a victory over #17 Joey Zargo.
Week Two
January 16th
Five Friday night duals! That’s what I’m talking about.
6:00 PM CST Purdue at Maryland
Michigan at Rutgers This one has a pair of really good matchups with the Mantanona brothers for Michigan taking on highly ranked foes. The Mantanonas are brothers and wrestling royalty as they are the second pair of NCAA wrestling brothers in their family as their two older brothers wrestled together at Oklahoma. #10 ranked Beau will take on Cornhusker transfer #10 Lenny Pinto and #8 Brock will go against #15 Shane Cartanega-Walsh.
Illinois at Michigan State
Penn State at Iowa Iowa’s recent struggles have taken a bit of luster off this matchup as well as Massoma Endeme leaving the Hawkeyes, but still a lot of good wrestling will be happening on BTN Friday night. Just highlighting the top 10 matchups gets you the following:
125# #2 Luke Lilledahl PSU vs #6 Dean Petersen
133# #4 Marcus Blaze PSU vs #8 and returning national finalist Drake Ayala
165# #1 Mitchell Mesenbrink PSU vs #3 Mikey Caliendo
174# #1 Levi Haines PSU vs #3 Patrick Kennedy
184# #1 Angelo Ferrari Iowa vs #4 OSU transfer Rocco Welsh
That is worth tuning in for.
7:00 PM CST Northwestern at Wisconsin
8:00 PM CST Nebraska at Minnesota The other televised dual Friday night following Hawkeyes-Lions will also be good assuming Minnesota hasn’t been invaded by then. Nebraska should win this one, but we’ve got TWO!! top ten matchups here. At 184, we get #3 Max Mcenelly for the Gophers against the always dangerous #9 Silas Allred and at HWT, we get #4 ranked AJ Ferrari for the Cornhuskers against #10 Koy Hoppke.
January 18th
12:00 CST Maryland at Indiana
Purdue at Rutgers
1:00 CST Illinois at Michigan Honestly, this Sunday slate is pretty lackluster, but this dual, televised on BTN will have some good matchups depending on health of a few Illini grapplers. At 285, we could see #8 Taye Ghadiali (UM) against #11 Luke Luffman although Luffman sat out the last dual and at 157, we could see #9 Kannon Webster (ILL) against #14 Cam Catrabone, but Webster is in concussion protocol, so we’ll see.
2:00 CST Penn State at Northwestern
