“Undefeated” is a term that describes the Minnesota wrestling team’s conference dual record. “Defeated” describes winless Northwestern’s.
The Wildcats fell to No. 1 Minnesota 38-6 on Friday night at a nearly empty Welsh-Ryan Arena, with just two NU wrestlers pulling out individual victories.
Sophomore Ryan Kane started off the Cats (7-10, 0-5 Big Ten) with a 3-0 win over Minnesota’s John Hardy, ranked No. 12 nationally.
Kane defeated Hardy 13-7 at 165 pounds to bring his Big Ten record to 4-1. The only NU wrestler with a better conference record is John Giacche at 5-0.
But the Cats were unable to retain the lead, dropping the next six matches to Minnesota opponents, five of whom are ranked.
“A lot of things we do in practice and we’ve been doing all year are exactly what Kane did and a lot of Minnesota guys did to us,” NU head coach Tim Cysewski said. “We had too many guys going to their backs, and that’s just inexcusable at this level.”
The defending-national champion Golden Gophers (15-0, 4-0) had three pins, three major decisions, one technical fall, one minor decision and only two losses in the meet.
Save the one minor decision, each of the Cats’ individual losses handed the Golden Gophers at least four team points.
“A lot of (my teammates) wrestle a pretty good match, but you get a takedown here and a takedown there and the next thing you know they’re getting majors,” Giacche said.
Cysewski said his team’s performance was spotty and lacked the consistency necessary to win matches in the Big Ten.
The Golden Gophers, on the other hand, had consistency working firmly to their advantage.
“Even if you have a better guy in front of you, at least compete out there,” Cysewski said. “We had a couple of guys that just didn’t do that.”
The only other NU grappler to win a match was Giacche, a junior, in the 141-pound weight class.
Giacche had prepared to wrestle No. 7 Chad Erikson. But he found out just before the match that he would be wrestling Trent Hatlevig instead.
Giacche trailed entering the third round of his match, taking the final 4-3 lead within the last minute.
“It’s one of those matches that you win but don’t feel so positive about,” Giacche said. “You want to get those matches out of the way. And you definitely want to get them out of the way before Big Tens.”
Cysewski also expressed disappointment about Giacche’s win.
“Johnny really didn’t wrestle well,” Cysewski said. “I’m glad Johnny won, but he did not wrestle the way he normally does.”
Cysewski added that Giacche was slow to earn points in the match and needs to pick up the pace in order to succeed in the future.
“If he wants to be a national champ and an All-American, he can’t wrestle like that,” Cysewski said. “And he knows that.”
With only three matches left in the season, the Cats have yet to record the necessary win to improve upon their 2000-2001 conference record of 0-8. Their next chance to do so comes Friday at Michigan State.
