Thoughts & Observations: NC State wrestling falls in epic dual to No. 1 Iowa
NC State wrestling went toe to toe with current No. 1 and defending national champion Iowa Tuesday night at the Collegiate Duals in Niceville, Fla., falling via a 19-15 final team score. The Wolfpack didn’t get the win, but impressed in an incredible dual.
The top-ranked Hawkeyes were thought to be indestructible. The defending champions were so good last year, they clinched the NCAA title before the finals started last year. They returned all seven All-Americans and had six wrestlers in the lineup against NC State who were ranked among the top eight nationally by InterMat.
NC State countered with four such wrestlers, but somebody forgot to tell the Wolfpack they didn’t have a chance.
The result was the dual of the college wrestling season so far … it’s stil early with matches like Virginia Tech at NC State — the dual of the year last season — to come. Thoughts and observations from the Pack’s performance:
Ryan Jack’s coming out party
The fireworks for the Wolfpack began in the third match, at 141 pounds — and they couldn’t have been bigger. Freshman Ryan Jack went toe to toe with four-time All-American and seventh-year senior Jaydin Eierman. The match featured jaw-dropping scrambles that had the entire wrestling world talking, and represented Jack’s official college wrestling coming out party.
Jack jumped out to a 5-2 lead, but Eierman staged a monster comeback and took the lead with 23 seconds left.
Chaos ensued from there. Jack went for the win instead of an escape and overtime … and at the end nearly picked up a defensive pin via a non-control fall. The ref never called it, wrestling twitter erupted (one account asked its 35,000 followers if Eierman was pinned, and 81 percent of the first 400 responders said yes) and Eierman escaped with a one-point win.
That was really the story of the match — Iowa did just enough to get the win, but NC State impressed.
After splitting the 133-pound starting spot last year, Jack nearly had Eierman, who has placed top-five at NCAAs four times and was the runner-up last year at 141, in a number of ways. He’s always shown flashes but may be putting it all together now.
Ed Scott is for real
157-pound freshman Ed Scott threw his patented lefty headlock and pinned two-time All-American Kaleb Young, who is currently ranked eighth nationally, in 70 seconds.
What an incredible two days for him — he posted a 3-2 win over No. 15 Jarrett Jacques of Missouri in addition to an 18-1 tech fall yesterday.
He looks great since moving up from 149 last year, is 15-1 on the year with 13 bonus-point wins, including six pins and four tech falls. His lone loss was to a teammate, who he beat the following weekend. One of his two non-bonus-point wins was over another teammate.
People will start knowing to look for that move from Scott, but he has been impressive with his ability to force it at this point and looks great in all facets.
Two backups impress
When 165-pound freshman Donald Cates got the nod against No. 1 Alex Marinelli, many probably thought he was a sacrificial lamb. Cates not only scored the first takedown, he didn’t give up bonus points, which could’ve been huge for the team score. A takedown on Marinelli is a takedown on Marinelli — there was nothing fluky about it.
Junior heavyweight Tyrie Houghton was in a similar position to Cates when he got the nod against No. 6 Tony Cassioppi. He was even closer than Cates to an upset that would’ve sent shockwaves through college wrestling.
There was scrambling that would’ve been impressive for guys 100 pounds lighter and at one point Cassioppi even appeared to be caught on his back for a split second.
In the second period with Cassioppi leading 2-0, Houghton threw both legs in and flattened his opponent out while he was working a power half-nelson. However, the referee stepped in and inexplicably stopped the move, which could’ve resulted in major points of a close bout, for being potentially dangerous.
Wrestling twitter was on fire once again.
Cassioppi took advantage of his second (or third) life, and dominated en route to a 6-2 win that clinched the dual. There was only a one-point difference in the team score going into that final bout.
Cates and Houghton, who is third on the NCSU heavyweight depth chart, may have earned longer looks going forward.
A new usual suspect?
It’s not really a headline when sixth-year seniors Tariq Wilson (149) and Hayden Hidlay (174), or redshirt sophomore Trent Hidlay (184) look good in a win. Wilson won 7-3 over an Iowa backup, Hayden beat a guy who qualified for NCAAs up a weight class last year and Trent shut out Abe Assad, who was the No. 11 seed for the canceled 2020 NCAA Championships before missing last year.
Even though he didn’t win, freshman 197-pounder Isaac Trumble was right there with No. 7 Jacob Warner, a three-time All-American and fifth-year senior, in a 3-2 loss.
It was the end of arguably one of the toughest two-day stretches for anybody at the Collegiate Duals. Trumble’s tourney opened with a major decision loss to No. 12 Lou DePrez, then he responded with a 5-3 victory over No. 4 Rocky Elam, a junior world champ, before fighting Warner down to the end.
The tough tests won’t stop for Trumble — those still on the schedule include No. 16 Luke Stout (Princeton), No. 2 Nino Bonaccorsi (Pittsburgh), No. 14 Jay Aiello (Virginia) and No. 30 Max Shaw (North Carolina), plus he’ll run into some tough foes at the Southern Scuffle.
Despite the challenging slate, Trumble is getting very close to becoming one of those “usual suspect” hammers with his older teammates.
The final word
There were controversial calls (or no-calls), but that just seems to be what happens when NC State and Iowa meet on the wrestling mat lately. Team captain Hayden Hidlay was able to find the right words, as usual, to put the performance into perspective:
