Northwestern had a tumultuous Winter Break, with a disappointing finish in last week’s Midlands Championships following the announcement of a major shake-up in next year’s coaching staff.
On the mat, the Wildcats (2-3-1) tied for 31st out of 54 teams with seven points after facing some of the country’s top talent in the 47th annual Midlands tournament at Welsh-Ryan Arena. Big Ten rival Iowa won the team title with 168.5 points, making it the Hawkeyes’ third consecutive first-place finish at the Midlands Championships.
“The team performance as a whole was very disappointing,” junior Andrew Nadhir said. “I don’t know if guys didn’t cut weight after Christmas or we were just nervous, but our team should be doing much better than that.”
Although NU did not wrestle well as a team, it had a few individual bright spots.
Top-seeded senior Brandon Precin placed third in the 125-pound weight class, making this the fourth year in a row he has finished in the top eight at the Midlands. The three-time NCAA qualifier, is wrestling unattached, meaning he is not appearing in duals for the Cats this season.
Tenth-seeded Nadhir (149) also came through for the Cats, going deep in his division’s bracket before getting injured and leaving his match against Michigan State’s David Cheza. A win would have put Nadhir in the seventh-place match.
“I did pretty well,” Nadhir said. “I came back well in my night matches after losing my second match, especially beating the fifth seed from Minnesota. Unfortunately I had to default (against Cheza) after coach (Tim Cysewski) decided it was best.”
Freshman Kevin Bialka (157) also had a strong showing, upsetting nationally-ranked Bryan Deutsch of Northern Illinois 7-4 in the second round before losing to Mercy’s Andy Lamancusa 13-11. Deutsch pinned Bialka when the teams met earlier in December.
Despite wrestling at home and receiving strong performances from Precin, Nadhir and Bialka, the Cats had an unsatisfying tournament, as nine wrestlers went 0-2.
“We went in there to place a couple guys and win more matches than we ended up doing,” Bialka said. “Up and down the lineup, we didn’t do nearly as well as we wanted to. It was disappointing to so many guys, but we’ll be fine.”
But the biggest news for NU came off the mat. The athletic department and Cysewski announced a major re-organization of the coaching staff, effective this summer.
Cysewski, who has led the team the past 20 years, will hand over the program’s reins to current associate coach and former NU wrestling great Drew Pariano. Cysewski will remain as an assistant on Pariano’s staff.
“It’s great for Drew to do what he really wants with the team,” Bialka said. “He will focus more on offseason conditioning and regulating workouts in the offseason a little more than Tim did. (Pariano) has been pulling in some good recruits lately so that will probably continue as well.”
Pariano’s recruiting prowess has attracted some of the nation’s best wrestlers to Evanston, including current NU stars Jason Welch and Precin. This past month, Pariano secured the second-ranked recruiting class in the nation for next year.
“I always figured Drew would take over, but didn’t expect it so soon,” Nadhir said. “I’m happy for him, and it’s great because Tim will still be with the program. It will turn out well, especially since (Cysewski) chose Drew as his successor.”[email protected]
