Down eight points and with two matches left, Northwestern needed more than a pair of wins to come away with anything to show against Eastern Michigan. Two clutch displays gave the Wildcats (1-2-1) a dramatic though unsatisftying come-from-behind tie in Ypsilanti, Mich.
Junior Aaron Jones (184-pound weight class) defeated Nick Hendrick 4-0 in the second-to-last heat, gaining three points for NU and closing the gap to 18-13. With a single event left, sophomore John Schoen (197) earned a technical-fall-bonus-point win by overwhelming Josh Lewis 25-10, giving the Cats five points and the tie.
“I didn’t really think about the score,” Schoen said. “I just wanted to get the pin and get the victory. I knew I had to wrestle really hard, I just went out there and controlled the match and the pace.”
Despite the comeback, the Cats were disappointed in coming away with a tie. Even Schoen, who came up big when his team needed him most, could have taken down his opponent to earn six points and a 19-18 win for NU. The Cats defeated the Eagles twice in the past two seasons, winning 29-6 in 2007 and 23-13 in 2008.
“It’s not what we wanted,” Schoen said. “There were a lot of improvements from last weekend when we didn’t come out to wrestle 100%, but we still didn’t wrestle the way we should.”
The Cats started off slow for the third straight match, losing both the heavyweight and 125-pound weight class matches by 4-0 scores. Senior Eric Metzler (133) briefly stopped Eastern Michigan’s momentum with a narrow 2-1 victory, though NU forfeited the 141-pound weight class to go down 12-3.
Sunday marked the fourth straight dual NU has wrestled without someone at the 141-pound weight class, causing it to give up six free points each match. Junior Keith Sulzer, who qualified for the NCAA tournament in the 141-pound weight class the past two seasons, is out indefinitely with an illness, coach Tim Cysewski said.
“All the teams we wrestle are good, and knowing we have to give up six points is not good for us,” Schoen said. “That’s where we need other guys to step and get points for our team.”
Following junior Andrew Nadhir’s (149) 4-2 win, freshman Kevin Bialka (157) was shutout 7-0. Sophomore Robert Kellogg (165) got a major decision win – gaining four points instead of three – but sophomore Frank Battaglia (174) dropped a 5-1 decision, setting the stage for Jones and Schoen to rescue NU.
“We would have had a chance to win if we picked up another point,” Cysewski said. “I felt we had a pretty good chance of not only tying but winning if we could have done a couple better things. This is still a much younger team that is going to get better, and this lineup won’t necessarily be the lineup we’ll have in a few weeks.”
NU dealt with several lineup changes, including the the insertion of newcomer Bialka in place of junior Kyle Bertin and sophomore Dominic Marella, both injury casualties.
“It went to what I think would happen, and they had an advantage going into it,” Cysewski said. “I felt confident we had guys who could close the gap. A lot of wrestling depends on how your best guys match up with their best guys, and in those matchups our guys beat theirs head to head in the 133 with Metzler and 149 with Nadhir.”
The tie was not the ideal result for the Cats, but Cysewski said he was content with the team’s strides from last weekend’s losses against Stanford and Purdue.
“As long as I see improvements I’ll be happy,” he said. “We seemed more comfortable out there and I saw a big improvement this week. We’ve got to continue to work on that, and the more you do that the more you get into a rhythm.”
NU will take Thanksgiving break off before visiting Northern Illinois on Dec. 3.[email protected]
