After missing the last two meets, Iowa’s Nick Moore is slated to make his return to the mat on Friday against Northwestern.
His disappearance from the lineup was never fully explained, and Iowa head coach Tom Brands continued that theme during Tuesday’s media availability.
“We’ve seen progress, we’ve seen healing, and I feel good. If he feels good, then I feel good, and he feels good,” Brands said. “It’s just all kinds of healing.”
Moore sat out the previous two duals — Jan. 11 at Oklahoma State and Jan. 16 against Illinois — and his presence was sorely missed.
In his absence, Iowa used a different wrestler for each meet (Patrick Rhoads against Oklahoma State and Logan Thomsen against Illinois), and both losses were bonus-point victories for the opposing team.
Moore is 13-4 on the season, but he is just 2-3 in his last five matches. It doesn’t get much easier this week — he is likely to wrestle Northwestern’s sixth-ranked Pierce Harger, who has beaten Moore once this season, an 8-5 decision in the Midlands semifinals.
However, Moore does have history on his side — he won the previous three meetings between the two wrestlers.
Limited time, room for improvement
Senior Josh Dziewa knows he doesn’t have a whole lot of time left as college wrestler.
In fact, he’s counting down the days — not out of a desire to be done but an acute awareness of how little time he has remaining and how little time left he has to get to where he wants to be as a wrestler.
“There’s a realization that it’s almost over, I’ve got 60 days left, that’s a realization — if not now, when?” Dziewa said. “If not now in the first period, when am I ever going to do it, am I going to live the rest of my life in regret? No matter what I’ve done, I’m already going to regret what I’ve already done.
“I should have went earlier my entire career, and now at least, I’ll have the say if I do it, at least I went toward the end.”
When he says going earlier, he means attacking sooner in the match, something that he feels he has struggled with and wants to improve as he enters the twilight of his career.
“It’s been kind of the script of my career, and I’m working on it. It’s redundant, and I’m really at a loss for words,” Dziewa said. “It’s moving a guy sooner and moving my feet and then banging them harder and getting him out of position so I can go in the first period.”
Northwestern on Friday
Iowa will face its third top-10 opponent of the season when 10th-ranked Northwestern comes to Iowa City on Friday.
The Wildcats boast three top-6 wrestlers, No. 4 heavyweight Mike McMullan, Harger, and returning NCAA champion Jason Tsirtsis.
“[On Friday], we’ll see a national champion at 149, we’ll a guy that we owe at 165, and he just had a big win against Indiana, and we’ll see a heavyweight — two titans wrestling and seven other weights that we have to be ready for,” Brands said. “They’re not going to lie down.”
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