The ascent to the top of the looming mountain of Big Ten wrestling is not a smooth journey.
Northwestern’s bumpy attempt to scale that slope continued over the weekend as the No. 13 Wildcats (9-5, 4-3 Big Ten) notched a 21-13 victory over No. 18 Michigan State (4-7, 2-4) on Friday at Welsh-Ryan Arena before falling, 20-16, to No. 9 Iowa (10-7, 4-4) on Sunday in Iowa City, Iowa.
NU has now faced four of the five Big Ten teams ranked in the top 10 in the nation and lost to three of them, by an average of just eight points.
“It’s an intangible thing,” coach Tim Cysewski said. “We need more consistency. Some of our guys are wrestling well but some aren’t. We have to be ready to beat anyone we face and not be worried about whether they’re ranked higher or lower.”
Sophomore Mike Tamillow, ranked 11th at 184 pounds, found himself right in the middle of both weekend matches.
Tamillow fell behind 4-2 with 15 seconds left in his match against Michigan State freshman John Murphy when one of his shots was reversed. But with time running out, Tamillow pulled a reversal of his own and tacked on a near fall to escape with a 7-4 victory with riding time, putting the Cats ahead, 15-13.
“He set up hesitant instead of trying to beat me to the punch (in the final seconds),” Tamillow said. “Once he got the reversal he was thinking about just surviving the last 10 seconds. But in my head I was thinking, ‘This isn’t happening; I have to do something about it.'”
While Tamillow put the Cats ahead against the Spartans, his tough 3-2 loss against seventh-ranked Hawkeyes’ senior Paul Bradley put the Cats behind 20-10, an all-but insurmountable deficit with just two matches to go.
“I wasn’t as ready as I should have been when I stepped on the mat,” Tamillow said. “The win against Michigan State was almost relieving but I wasn’t feeling that good and I let it get to me.”
Tamillow’s loss came on the heels of a pin by second-ranked sophomore Jake Herbert at 174 pounds that got the Cats back in the contest. With Herbert already leading junior Ben Stedman 10-1 in the second period, he pulled what he called the “good old junior high chicken wing half-nelson,” to score the fall and extend his winning steak to 33.
“I got on top of him and cut off his air,” Herbert said. “Before he knew it, he was pinned.”
Herbert’s dominant performance was welcome after he just managed to squeeze past fifth-ranked Michigan State senior R.J. Boudro, 4-2, on Friday.
That decision was part of a six-match winning streak for the Cats, who had fallen behind the Spartans, 13-3. The run started with sophomore Greg Hagel’s victory against junior Tony Greathouse at 157 pounds. Hagel got off to a hot start, and held on to win 7-6 with riding time to get the Cats back on track after their early deficit.
“I knew off the bat I had to score a lot,” Hagel said. “I coasted at the end, which I didn’t want to do, but I got the win.”
But against Iowa, Hagel lost by major decision to seventh-ranked senior Joe Johnston as part of a five-match Hawkeye winning streak that put them ahead 17-4.
And although the Cats took three of the final four matches, it wasn’t enough.
“We felt going in it was going to be a tough match, being in Iowa’s back yard,” Cysewski said. “They wanted to finish their Big Ten season on a high note and we didn’t wrestle consistently enough.”
Reach Andrew Simon at [email protected].
