The Wildcat wrestlers got the chance to tune up and gain some experience at last weekend’s Michigan State Open in East Lansing, Mich.
No. 11 NU, which features six ranked wrestlers, placed eight in the top eight spots in their respective weight classes. Six made it to the finals and three came away victorious.
Coach Tim Cysewski was pleased with the team’s performance at the tournament which has no team scoring.
“It was a good chance to take inventory of what we have and what we don’t have,” Cysewski said. “I saw a lot of good things. The key is to keep challenging everyone because we don’t want to get complacent.”
Sophomore Ryan Lang, ranked No. 10 at 141 lbs. by the NWCA, started well winning his weight class. After notching a pin in the semifinals, Lang squeezed by the Spartans’ fifth-ranked junior Andy Simmons, 6-5, in the final round. The effort earned him the title of Most Outstanding Wrestler for the tournament.
“For me, (the award) represented more of our team performance. We wrestled a lot better than we have before at the beginning of the season,” Lang said. “That was just a little bonus for me.”
Sophomore Jake Herbert, who was an All-American last year and is ranked No. 2 at 174 lbs. this year by the NWCA, rolled through the two-day tournament. Seeded first in his weight class, Herbert defeated his opponents by a combined score of 36-7. He beat Michigan State senior R.J. Boudro, 9-1 in the final round.
“I felt like I was in good shape, and I just kept scoring and kept in control,” Herbert said. “I made it my match.”
The other NU winner was sophomore Mike Tamillow, ranked 13th at 184 lbs. by the NWCA. Tamillow closed out his 35-9 rout of the competition with a 7-0 final-round shutout over Central Michigan sophomore Ben Kelto.
Cysewski was pleased with Tamillow’s effort and pointed to the fact that he had lost to Kelto twice last year as a sign of Tamillow’s vast improvement.
Three other Wildcats made it to the finals before falling. Senior Matt Delguyd (197 lbs.) took out Michigan freshman Casey White 3-2 in the semifinals. Delguyd, ranked ninth by the NWCA, then lost to Central Michigan’s fourth-ranked sophomore Wynn Michalak 8-1 in the final round.
Graduate student Will Durkee, a transfer from Virginia, made it to the finals of the 165 lb. class before falling to Michigan State freshman Rocky Cozart 6-4.#
Fifth-ranked sophomore Dustin Fox was edged out in the finals of the 285 lb. class by Bill Stouffer, who was competing unattached.
Cysewski likes his team’s depth, pointing to the number of NU wrestlers who found success in the tournament.
“We have a whole team full of (guys to watch),” Cysewski said. “There’s not just one standout. We have seven or eight guys who had great weekends.”
However, Herbert said the team could have done even better.
“We still need to work on a lot of stuff,” Herbert said. “We only had three winners, but we should have had four or five. We need to be able to walk through the Michigan State Open if we want to be national champions.”
“We should be at least in the top four or five teams at the national championships,” Herbert added about his expectations for the season. “We want to come back with some hardware.”
Reach Andrew Simon at [email protected].
