Trophy Hunters #4: The Impact Of The UNI/Nebraska Dual
Trophy Hunters #4: The Impact Of The UNI/Nebraska Dual
Analyzing the impact of Northern Iowa and Nebraska's team trophy chances following their big dual in West Gym on Sunday.
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This dang team race. Every week provides tremendous volatility in the individual rankings, which in turn creates massive jumps and dips in our projected NCAA tournament points used to determine the team rankings.
On Sunday afternoon in West Gym, we saw a massive dual as third-ranked Northern Iowa hosted #6 Nebraska, with the Huskers taking the dual 23-19 over the Panthers. So, what can we take away from this dual for each team?
We'll start with the marquee matchups at 174 and 184. A pair of All-Americans faced off first, with #5 Bryce Steiert winning on a locked hands call over #4 Mikey Labriola. Although there were no takedowns in the match, Steiert was in deep three different times and kept Labriola off his own legs. Additionally, Steiert had three big mat returns on his way to 49 seconds of riding time in the second. All in all, it seems like the move up in weight should result in Steiert outpacing his eighth-place finish from a year ago.
Then up at 184, Taylor Lujan made a statement as perhaps the favorite to be opposite Zahid Valencia in the NCAA finals. He majored 2018 AA Taylor Venz, which was not an upset in terms of rankings, but made Lujan's top-three case that much stronger. He didn't let Venz finish a cradle when he was dead to rights, had five total takedowns, a reversal, riding time and picked up a stalling point. Dominant performance by Lujan.
But it wasn't all rosy for UNI's big guns. At 149, #3 Max Thomsen fell in overtime to Collin Purinton, a guy Thomsen beat 11-4 in their dual last year. Thomsen had made a big jump in team points for coach Doug Schwab's Panthers the week before, going from #8 to third. For coach Manning's Huskers, it makes Purinton look that much more like an AA threat in his final year in Lincoln in what is a wide-open weight.
Nebraska had their heavy hitters do some work, with #7 Chad Red opening up with a mixer to nearly pin and ending it with a first-period tech. Slow starts and occasional losses have plagued Red in his first two years, so a locked-in Red for the whole year makes him look like a real national title threat, which could seriously push the Big Red in team trophy contention.
Up at 197, #8 Eric Schultz also earned a tech, so he should hold serve in the rankings and showed he might be able to pick up a bonus-point win in March. It was against a UNI backup, so nothing to get too hung up on there. For the Panther Train, though, it is worrisome that Jacob Holschlag missed the dual right after injury defaulting out the previous week. They expect him back soon, maybe even for CKLV, but Holschlag missed the whole year with injuries and as the #3 guy in the country is a huge component of their team trophy chances.
Finally at 165, #4 Isaiah White earned a major and like Schultz looks like he did what he was supposed to. As for the rest of both teams, Alex Thomsen continues to look excellent on his feet but is having problems on the mat, taking down Jay Schwarm three times in the first period but getting pinned in the second. Jack Skudlarczyk spoiled the varsity debut of Ridge Lovett, who will now likely be the Husker 133 the rest of the way.
A big wildcard for Nebraska is 157 Peyton Robb, who picked up a pin right before halftime yesterday. He's wrestled five other D1 guys, picking up bonus each time, though none of them have been ranked opponents.
