The Northwestern wrestling team left Evanston last week with a depleted but healthy lineup and dreams of success at the Lone Star Duals.
Then the Wildcats ran into a Texas-sized ambush.
On Saturday, pre-meet injuries forced the Cats to forfeit two positions – or 12 points – and left them without two more of their best wrestlers.
NU went home with losses to No. 24 Northern Iowa, Navy and Stanford.
Already employing a makeshift lineup to overcome the losses of veterans Tom Ciezki and Matt Huebner, the Cats suffered another setback when Paul Augle, Ryan Kane and Josh Saul all were scratched from Saturday’s lineup. The three were injured prior to the meet.
NU (2-5) scrambled to fill the slots, but had no one available in the 133-pound and heavyweight divisions.
“We knew we had some trouble ahead of us – we were automatically down 12 points,” said sophomore Jason Erwinski, referring to the two forfeits.
Coach Tim Cysewski said the news caught his team by surprise. Saul is ranked No. 17 nationally as a heavyweight, and Kane thus far has posted a winning record in his first season in the lineup.
At the tournament, Kane’s replacement, freshman J.P. Boulus, was pinned twice in his first competition.
NU lost 31-9 to Northern Iowa (4-4), 29-16 to Navy (3-3) and 25-18 to Stanford (3-5). To make the pain worse, NU fared well in head-to-head matches and might have beaten Navy and Stanford if Kane and Saul had been healthy.
The Cats stayed competitive in Texas because four individual performances kept them afloat.
Junior Rob Potashnick (125 pounds) and freshman Josh Ballard (141 pounds) wrestled well from the start and both finished the day 2-1. Freshman Ryan Cumbee (149 pounds) and Erwinski (157 pounds) rolled to 3-0 records. Cumbee and Erwinski had a combined three pins, which gave the Cats the maximum six points possible (a regular decision is worth three points) and helped compensate for the forfeits.
Finding success at the top of the lineup, the Cats overcame the forfeit at 133 pounds and led two matches at the halfway mark and were tied in the other. But the heavier weight classes struggled to stay on their feet and were outscored 43-3 – by contrast, the lighter Cats went ahead 40-7.
NU players agreed that each match was winnable and said improvements in technique and attitude are sorely needed.
“Potashnick, Ballard, Cumbee and Erwinski wrestled fantastically,” Cysewski said. “The other guys didn’t wrestle quite as well, and that is unfortunate. We should have come home with two or three wins.”
Cysewski wants to see his struggling wrestlers follow the example of their successful teammates and, in turn, improve their results.
“The main thing we need is attitude,” Erwinski said. “Guys need to come out with chips on their shoulders and believe they are going to win.”
This season’s barrage of injuries has decimated the bottom half of NU’s lineup, but a pocket of talent has developed in the middle. Cysewski described Ballard, Cumbee and Erwinski as “murderer’s row.”
“Anytime guys are in their first year in the lineup, you are excited to see them improve each week,” Cysewski said, referring to the group. “When Saul and Kane come back, we are going to have a hard core of wrestlers.”
For now, the Cats are overloaded with wrestlers with little Big Ten experience. Coaches and players stress that growing pains are part of the process.
NU’s schedule shifts dramatically from pre-conference tournaments to the Big Ten season. Still, the Cats’ biggest priority is to recuperate from their injuries in time for Friday’s home contest against Eastern Illinois and the Big Ten opener against Iowa Sunday.
“It’s still early in the season, and we are a young team,” Erwinski said. “So, if we can make a couple of technical changes, then we are right in the middle of the Big Ten.”
