Iowa State head coach Kevin Dresser (photo courtesy of Tony Rotundo; WrestlersAreWarriors.com)D1 wrestling kicked off last week and the Big 12 came out blazing with two of the premiere duals of the weekend and a host of other events. Let's dive in and look at some of the highlights from the weekend.
Iowa State puts everyone on notice
Iowa State dominated the Battle in the River City at Jacksonville University on Saturday defeating Little Rock, Campbell, and most notably picking apart the 12th ranked Wisconsin Badgers from the Big 10. Just winning the dual vs. Wisconsin likely would have turned some heads, but this was absolute domination by the Cyclones. Ranked upset after ranked upset, and it wasn't fluke pins or bad calls, it was a lot of 5- and 6-point comfortable wins. This was a very good dual for ISU that makes the Big 12 race with Missouri seem a lot more interesting than it might have been a few weeks ago.
North Dakota State tops Nebraska
Another big dual win for the Big 12 came on Friday night when North Dakota State went to Nebraska and ruined “Jordan Burroughs Night†for the Huskers in front of 3,097 fans. A pin for Michael Caliendo at 165, a tech fall for DJ Parker at 184, and an overtime win for Michael Weber at 149 all proved to be huge catalysts for the Bison's upset. Nebraska was ranked #8 going into this giving NDSU their highest ranking road dual win in program history. All the way around, a huge win in a very exciting dual to kick off the season.
Valley doing some lineup shuffling
Utah Valley has been making some “interesting†(I guess that's what I'd call it) moves around the middle of their lineup. In their intersquad matches at 141 Isaiah Delgado knocked off 18th ranked Ty Smith 4-2. At the Michigan State Open, Delgado wrestled at 149 and finished fourth with a solid win over Kevon Davenport. Their next highest placer at the weight was Stockton O'Brien, who finished just outside the placement matches. Will Delgado be 41 or 49? Will be interested to see what they do with Delgado and Smith here as they seem to have a minor logjam with two of their top guys around the same size.
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