Sophomores Ryan Deakin and Sebastian Rivera continued their dominant starts to the season on Sunday, but Northwestern fell 27-15 against No. 6 Ohio State (9-1, 5-1 Big Ten) — its fifth loss in the past six duals, all against Big Ten opponents.

NU (3-8, 1-5) saw four wrestlers take home victories, three of whom won via major decision. Rivera, the top-ranked 125-pound wrestler in the nation, got NU started by earning four points against the Buckeyes’ Hunter Lucas, and junior Alec McKenna won his first dual of the season to give NU a 7-3 lead after three bouts.

It didn’t last. The Cats won just two of the next seven bouts and lost four by either fall or major decision, dropping costly points along the way.

Coach Matt Storniolo said the final score was not indicative of the way NU’s wrestlers attacked in the dual. The Cats’ problems, he said, lie in finishing.

“It’s just finishing that last 2 percent,” Storniolo said. “We were close to scoring in those matches, just didn’t put the nail in the coffin.”

After six bouts, NU found itself down by just one point, 12-11. From there, the Cats began to unravel. A major decision against Johnny Sebastian and Brendan Devine’s loss by fall gave Ohio State a commanding 22-11 lead, before the two sides traded blows to end the dual.

Senior Conan Jennings took home the dual’s last match by shutting out Gary Traub at 285, an 11-0 win. Jennings and Deakin both won their bouts by playing excellent defense, something which had Storniolo excited.

“Ryan didn’t give him any room to breathe there,” Storniolo said. “Really solid performance. Conan kept points off the board but still could’ve done a little bit better defensively. But the effort was great with Conan. It’s always a great thing when guys are coming away with bonus points.”

Deakin beat his fifth top-10 wrestler of the season, improving to 7-2 on the year against ranked opponents and outscoring them 68-38.

He said he didn’t think his shutout was a big deal. Instead, he said it was more important to rack up points and practice for the postseason tournament.

“It’s just more trying to get to my stuff and continuing to put points up on the board,” Deakin said. “Just trying to improve and keep fine tuning things for March.”

Deakin, who won first place at the 157-pound weight class at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Collegiate Invitational in Las Vegas in early December, has yet to lose a match since falling to top-ranked Jason Nolf against Penn State on Jan. 11.

The Cats wrestle again on Friday at Michigan State and Sunday at Michigan. Deakin said the truncated practice week that comes with a dual on Friday means the team will have to rest and get back to the drawing board with haste.

“(We’re) hitting some recovery early in the week hard, making sure we get good workouts in during the middle of the week and getting prepared for next week,” Deakin said. “Just kind of staying on track and getting all our homework done.”

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