It takes seven minutes to complete a wrestling match. Unfortunately for the Wildcats on Friday, they managed to get through only six.
The Cats (5-4) began strong in each match against Northern Illinois at Welsh-Ryan Arena, and usually managed to keep the score tied until the last moment. But their technique would invariably break down, and their opponents would pounce on them for the kill.
The No. 15 Huskies (8-5) slammed NU to the mat 27-6. The Cats managed two wins, but they also dropped five matches by a deficit of two points or less.
“That’s just purely unacceptable,” NU coach Tim Cysewski said. “We have to take pride in those kind of things. If we’re in a tight match like that, we have to have the confidence and pride in saying, ‘We’re going to win those matches’ — and we let them go.
“There is no excuse for that. No excuse at all.”
Sophomore Mike Kimberlin’s six-match winning streak ended in a surprising loss to Jeremy Banesh at 165 pounds. Kimberlin typically wrestles in the 157 spot, but was switched before the meet.
“I thought our effort was great,” Kimberlin said. “We were the guys working the whole time during the matches. (The Huskies) are good guys, I just thought that if we would have won those five matches that we lost by one point, it would have gone the other way.”
The sophomore had control over Banesh for the majority of the match, but in the final seconds the Husky managed to get on top of Kimberlin. He writhed out of Banesh’s control and was about to make another move when time expired.
“It was a hard-fought match, but (Kimberlin) has got to learn that details are important,” Cysewski said. “He’s got to learn to get away. He would do some of the right things, but then all of a sudden he would start panicking — rolling around and flopping around — you can’t do that.”
NU lost four other matches in the same fashion. Only red-shirt freshman John Velez and senior Jason Erwinski were able to pull out wins for the Cats.
“I wrestled (Bill Downey) last year and lost, so I just wanted to get him back,” Erwinski said. “He doesn’t have very strong offense, so I knew if I could get at least one takedown, he wouldn’t be able to take me down. It kind of went the way I planned.”
NU begins its grueling Big Ten schedule with No. 16 Michigan State on Friday.
While the time ticks away until their next meet, Erwinski said the Cats need to focus on wrestling complete, seven-minute matches.
“When you get in that one-point match, and it’s a tough one going down to the end, you just have to grit your teeth and go at him,” he said. “That’s just the way wrestling is.”
