The excitement in the Field House started brewing right out of the gate when 125-pounder Johnny Jimenez cruised past Brent Fleetwood in sudden victory, 2-0.
The Badgers suffered two-straight losses but then the thrill picked right back up at 149 pounds.
Andrew Crone had the highest-ranked matchup of the day in Justin Oliver and handled it with no problem. He fell behind 2-0 early in the first period but tied it up with a reversal and then captured the lead (6-2) with four nearfall right at the end, a lead he would not relinquish for the remainder of the bout.
Crone tacked on another reversal to extend his lead to 8-2, but Oliver made a comeback late in the second with an escape and takedown to cut Crone's lead to 8-5. Crone finished off the match with a final takedown and four more nearfall to cap the 14-5 major decision.
Isaac Jordan tallied a takedown and picked up a caution point to jump out to an early 3-0 lead in his Field House finale at 165 pounds. Jordan collected 2:56 of riding time and eight takedowns to clinch a final 19-6 major decision.
Junior Ricky Robertson (197) set the Badgers up for a perfect comeback with his 1-0 decision over No. 16 Austin Severn. Robertson choose bottom in the second and escaped 13 seconds to notch the only point he needed to come away with the win.
With the entire dual riding on his shoulders, senior Connor Medbery (HWT) ended his UW Field House legacy and continued his 22-win perfect streak with a 16-0 technical fall that secured the final win of the season for Wisconsin.
The Badgers only gave up one bonus-point win to the Chippewas, while Eli Stickley (133), Cole Martin (141), TJ Ruschell (157) and Hunter Ritter (184) all dropped decisions.
MATCH POINTS
-Andrew Crone extended a three-match win streak with his fifth major decision of the season.
-Crone also clinched his 25th win of the season, just one match from clinching the 50th win of his career.
-Both Crone and Ricky Robertson were the only Badgers to win their ranked matchups as Crone took down No. 7 Oliver and Robertson took down No. 16 Severn.
-It was Crone's second win over a ranked opponent this season but it was the biggest ranked win of his career.
- Isaac Jordan won his 21st match of the season and 10th dual win. It was his fourth major decision of the year.
-Connor Medbery remains undefeated at 22-0 and finishes the season with an unscathed 11-0 dual record. He recorded his 12th technical fall of the year and 15th bonus-point win.
-Wisconsin ends the season 7-5 overall and a perfect 3-0 in non-conference duals.
-UW also improves to 3-5 against ranked teams and 3-2 at home duals this season.
-The Badgers ended the season with three-straight wins and tied their longest winning streak of the season.
-Ricky Robertson has won his last three after snapping a six-match losing skid. He finishes with 23 wins on the season and six dual wins.
-Cole Martin, Andrew Crone and Isaac Jordan started every single match this season in their respective weight classes.
MAT TALK
"[The senior class] means a lot. It was a good way to end the season for Zeke, he wrestled great, a lot of offense there. Connor going out with the tech fall. No doubt about it, two great leaders, two great young men that will be greatly missed. But looking forward to those guys at Big Tens and NCAAs and continuing the upward movement and help them try to reach the success of being a national champion."
"I talked to the guys about it. From 125 to 157, they're all ranked match ups. I said to the guys, 'these are going to be some tight matches here.' Johnny came through, and we had our chances at 133 and 141, obviously Andrew Crone came through as well. It shows as a team we're going in the right direction, doing the right things. Ricky had a big win too over a ranked guy."
- Head coach Barry Davis
"Good things are going on, so we're really close, but we've got to go to another level yet and they know that. We'll give them a couple days off and then bring them in and work on some skill work to tighten things up individual wise and team wise and then we're off and running."
"Senior day is special, obviously the last time in the field house. Central Michigan is a good team, it was a good way to end the season for us as a group we had a good last two weeks, so yeah it was fun to go out there and wrestle well.
"Confidence-wise, it's good to end the season wrestling the best you have all season. I think I have another notch I can take it to and it's a good stepping stone to take to Big Tens and Nationals."
- Senior Isaac Jordan
"We have had two big wins in last two weeks, it is something to build off as a team and motivate us. The guys who lost have somethings to learn and the guys who won have more to learn to because we didn't wrestle perfect matches by any means. Just moving forward build off what we can do and get ready for St Louis.
"We are going to take a couple of days off, train hard this next week, we are not going to taper yet. We have plenty of time and this is the time to build and try to catch some of the guys ahead of us and seperate the gap that we have beaten before. We will taper, but we have a lot more to do, we have tournament time before us."
- Senior Connor Medbery
Results:
125: Johnny Jimenez (UW) over Brent Fleetwood (CMU) (SV-1 2-0) UW 3, CMU 0
133: Corey Keener (CMU) over Eli Stickley (UW) (Dec 6-3) UW 3, CMU 3
141: Mason Smith (CMU) over Cole Martin (UW) (Dec 7-4) UW 3, CMU 6
149: Andrew Crone (UW) over Justin Oliver (CMU) (MD 14-5) UW 7, CMU 6
157: Colin Heffernan (CMU) over Timothy Ruschell (UW) (SV-1 9-7) UW 7, CMU 9
165: Isaac Jordan (WIS) over L. Parks (CMU) (MD 19-6) UW 11, CMU 9
174: C. Brucki (CMU) over Jared Scharenbrock (UW) (TF 17-2 7:00) UW 11, CMU 14
184: Jordan Ellingwood (CMU) over Hunter Ritter (UW) (Dec 4-2) UW 11, CMU 17
197: Ricky Robertson (UW) over Austin Severn (CMU) (Dec 1-0) UW 14, CMU 17
285: Connor Medbery (UW) over Tyrus Kemp (CMU) (TF 16-0 3:18) UW 19, CMU 17
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