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Official Husker Locker Blog
2009 Jan 11
WRESTLING: Hawks and Cys Nip Huskers
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Nebraska’s wrestling team traveled to the NWCA National Duals with designs on surprising the field and winning it.
The Cornhuskers fell short, losing to No. 1 Iowa 22-11 and No. 2 Iowa State 20-19 on the meet’s final day. Nebraska finished fourth overall. Iowa won the crown by defeating No. 3 Cornell in the finals 23-13.
Unlike some previous years, however, NU (8-2) had realistic shots of beating those two powers, putting a good scare into the top-ranked Hawkeyes in a dual that was closer than the score suggested, and taking the Cyclones to the limit in what should be a preview of their conference dual Feb. 22.
“We wrestled a lot of great individuals, which is why we put it on our schedule,” Nebraska coach Mark Manning said. “We competed, we did some good things. It was a great opportunity to evaluate some of our guys. We know our strengths and weaknesses better.”
The strengths remain obvious: The Huskers are tough to beat in the upper weights, starting with Jordan Burroughs at 157 pounds. Burroughs had a dominant tournament, finishing 4-0 and beating three ranked wrestlers, including No. 8 Dan Vallimont of Penn State and No. 5 Cyler Sanderson of Iowa State.
“I’ll wrestle as many ranked guys as I can,” Burroughs said. “There’s always things you can work on.”
Second-ranked 174-pounder Brandon Browne was the other NU wrestler to go undefeated at the Duals. His standout win was a 5-4 decision over Iowa’s fifth-ranked Jay Borschel.
The weaknesses also came a little more into focus at the UNI Dome in Cedar Falls, Iowa. In four duals over two days, Nebraska finished 0-12 at 125, 133 and 141 pounds. Manning tried different combinations at 133 and 141, substituting Patrick Aleksanyan and Curtis Salazar for Matt Vacanti and Jon Burns, respectively. Although Aleksanyan and Salazar battled hard against Iowa’s highly-ranked wrestlers, they weren’t able to win during the weekend.
The contrast was most stark in the Iowa State dual, where the Cyclones staked a 17-0 lead in the first four matches, then held on, just barely, for a one-point victory. And ISU got that because third-ranked Jake Varner upset NU’s top-ranked Craig Brester at 197 pounds with a 10-4 decision. The Huskers scored two upsets of their own in the dual, as 165-pounder Stephen Dwyer stoned No. 5 Jon Reader 4-0 and heavyweight Tucker Lane stunned No. 3 Dave Zabriskie 7-6.
Manning said Lane, a redshirt freshman who polished off NU’s two weekend wins with dramatic victories, “had a great tournament,” finishing 3-1.
“We knew Lane was capable of that,” Manning said.
Against Iowa, Nebraska probably needed to steal a lower weight match to set up a chance to win for Lane to win at heavyweight. NU came close, as Andy Pokorny staked a 4-0 lead on reserve JJ Krutsinger at 125 pounds with a takedown and two back points. Krutsinger rallied for a 7-4 win, however. Dwyer and 184-pounder Vince Jones also fell short of upsetting ranked Iowa wrestlers, losing 3-2 and 8-5, respectively.
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The Cornhuskers fell short, losing to No. 1 Iowa 22-11 and No. 2 Iowa State 20-19 on the meet’s final day. Nebraska finished fourth overall. Iowa won the crown by defeating No. 3 Cornell in the finals 23-13.
Unlike some previous years, however, NU (8-2) had realistic shots of beating those two powers, putting a good scare into the top-ranked Hawkeyes in a dual that was closer than the score suggested, and taking the Cyclones to the limit in what should be a preview of their conference dual Feb. 22.
“We wrestled a lot of great individuals, which is why we put it on our schedule,” Nebraska coach Mark Manning said. “We competed, we did some good things. It was a great opportunity to evaluate some of our guys. We know our strengths and weaknesses better.”
The strengths remain obvious: The Huskers are tough to beat in the upper weights, starting with Jordan Burroughs at 157 pounds. Burroughs had a dominant tournament, finishing 4-0 and beating three ranked wrestlers, including No. 8 Dan Vallimont of Penn State and No. 5 Cyler Sanderson of Iowa State.
“I’ll wrestle as many ranked guys as I can,” Burroughs said. “There’s always things you can work on.”
Second-ranked 174-pounder Brandon Browne was the other NU wrestler to go undefeated at the Duals. His standout win was a 5-4 decision over Iowa’s fifth-ranked Jay Borschel.
The weaknesses also came a little more into focus at the UNI Dome in Cedar Falls, Iowa. In four duals over two days, Nebraska finished 0-12 at 125, 133 and 141 pounds. Manning tried different combinations at 133 and 141, substituting Patrick Aleksanyan and Curtis Salazar for Matt Vacanti and Jon Burns, respectively. Although Aleksanyan and Salazar battled hard against Iowa’s highly-ranked wrestlers, they weren’t able to win during the weekend.
The contrast was most stark in the Iowa State dual, where the Cyclones staked a 17-0 lead in the first four matches, then held on, just barely, for a one-point victory. And ISU got that because third-ranked Jake Varner upset NU’s top-ranked Craig Brester at 197 pounds with a 10-4 decision. The Huskers scored two upsets of their own in the dual, as 165-pounder Stephen Dwyer stoned No. 5 Jon Reader 4-0 and heavyweight Tucker Lane stunned No. 3 Dave Zabriskie 7-6.
Manning said Lane, a redshirt freshman who polished off NU’s two weekend wins with dramatic victories, “had a great tournament,” finishing 3-1.
“We knew Lane was capable of that,” Manning said.
Against Iowa, Nebraska probably needed to steal a lower weight match to set up a chance to win for Lane to win at heavyweight. NU came close, as Andy Pokorny staked a 4-0 lead on reserve JJ Krutsinger at 125 pounds with a takedown and two back points. Krutsinger rallied for a 7-4 win, however. Dwyer and 184-pounder Vince Jones also fell short of upsetting ranked Iowa wrestlers, losing 3-2 and 8-5, respectively.
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Home > Blogs > Official Husker Locker Blog > WRESTLING: Hawks and Cys Nip Huskers
I had the pleasure of attending the Sunday session of the National Duals (had to miss Saturday due to family committments). The Huskers dug themselves in a big hole the first 4 weight classes and couldn't overcome that against top tier teams like Iowa and Iowa State.
That said, watching Jordan Burroughs (157) is worth the price of admission. He is way faster than his opponents, and gets deep on a double leg before the other wrestler can react (e.g., he smoked #5 ranked Cyler Sanderson from ISU 12-4, and Sanderson's 4 points were on uncontested escapes). I'd like to see a sweep single and an ankle pick from him but so far a double leg is enough.
Steven Dwyer (#7 at 165) lost 3-2 to # 3 Ryan Morningstar of Iowa with Morningstar stalling like crazy over the last 30 seconds - funny how the Iowa fans get their knickers in a bunch thinking other teams are supposedly stalling but hey Iowa doesn't stall because ..well...they are Iowa. I think Dwyer would win a rematch. He then beat # 5 Reader of ISU 4-0. I watched Dwyer at the National Duals when he was a freshman and he had the bad luck of wrestling pretty much the top 5 in his class at the time. Forged by fire I guess. He is now one the best in the country.
Brandon Browne (#2 at 174) gutted out a tough 5-4 win over #5 Jay Borshel of Iowa (who upset the # 3 wrestler from Cornell) and coasted a bit over a replacement wrestler from ISU. Browne is very tall and lanky which creates problems for his opponents and helps him get in some good attacks from his feet, but seems like he can be overpowered on counters somtimes by shorter/stockier guys.
Vince Jones at 184 is the most unpredictble wrestler I have seen. He pulls off some great wins (last second throw to pin a Minnesota kid last year) but seems to lose some he shouldn't. He pinned the ISU kid in the middle of what looked like a close match (hard to tell because it happened quickly and my memory is suspect but it looked like he got a chin and an arm from a front headlock and just turned him over with it - not something you usually see a D1 wrestler get stuck with) and lost a close one to #3 Keddy of Iowa. But he got pinned on Saturday (granted to the # ranked guy) and has more than his share of disappointing losses.
Brester at 197 (ranked #1 coming in) was the most disappointing performance. He got taken to overtime by an Iowa kid who he should have crushed then got beat badly by #3 Varner from ISU (a 2-time NCAA runner up at a lower weight class). He didn't have much offense on his feet for those matches. The Big XII 197 class also has Max Askren of Mizzou. That should be an interesting one to watch at the Big XII tourney, which is in Lincoln this year.
Freshman Tucker Lane at heavyweight was a big positive. While he lost to the Iowa kid, he then went on to beat #3 ranked Zambriskie of ISU, and it was not a fluke. He turned Zambriskie to his back early in the match and was in control most of the way. Lane played defense late in the match which gave Zambriskie a bit of a run (final was only 7-6) but Lane was not in serious danger of losing. Unfortunatley for Lane, this weight class in the Big XII also has #1 Rosholt from Okie State and #2 Ellis from Mizzou. Both of them are seniors. Should be fun to watch in March.
– Jan 12, 2009 at 10:08 am
"What if" is always a sticky question, but I can't help but dream about where we would be if we had Donohoe and Jordan in the lineup this year...
– Jan 11, 2009 at 7:19 pm