By Pete Ruden
Cory Clark has been good at wrestling most of his life.
He was a four-time Iowa state champion in high school. In his three years at Iowa, he has earned All-America honors each season.
So when the 133-pound senior lost his match against Oklahoma State’s Kaid Brock, it came as a surprise to many.
Clark was No. 1 in the country at his weight class before that match, but he fell as soon as the next rankings came out. The new No. 1 was Ohio State’s Nathan Tomasello, Clark’s opponent this week.
“He’s No. 1, so that means he knows how to wrestle. I guess it means that to me … I know he’s got good fundamentals, I know he’s strong, I know he’s got good offense,” Clark said. “But none of that really scares me or bothers me. My whole career I’ve trained with Matt McDonough, Dan Dennis, Thomas Gilman, Tony Ramos, Terry Brands. I’ve wrestled those guys the last five years here. Put this guy in front of me, it’s nothing I haven’t felt or that I’m scared of, not to say it’s not something that’s on my mind.”
Even though Clark rebounded Jan. 20 with a 19-4 technical fall victory over Penn State’s George Carpenter, he fell from No. 3 to No. 4 in the 133-pound rankings, as Seth Gross of South Dakota State took off from No. 7 up to No. 2.
Iowa’s last dual with Ohio State came in January 2015 in Columbus.
But Clark didn’t have a chance to wrestle Tomasello that night.
Wrestling at 125 pounds, Tomasello was faced with the tough task of wrestling Thomas Gilman.
In a tight match that included a tiebreaker period, Gilman got the best of Clark’s next opponent, all while teaching Clark things along the way.
Clark said he learned that he has to wrestle Tomasello tough throughout the match, just as with everyone else.
“[Clark’s] going to have to go out there and wrestle him hard. That’s all there is to it,” Gilman said. “I don’t like the guy whatsoever, but I have a lot of respect for him. He’s a hard wrestler, he’s a competitor. If Clark wants to go out there and he wants to win, he’s got to wrestle hard. There’s no magic formula just because I wrestled him and beat him all those times and he beat me once.”
Iowa head coach Tom Brands said that while both grapplers wrestle hard, they have different styles. He described Tomasello’s style as more straight-forward, while Clark’s style is more “scrambly.”
While Clark has only lost one match over the past two weeks, Iowa has lost the past two duals as a team. With that, both will be try to climb their way back to the top.
With the No. 4 team and No. 1 wrestler at 133 pounds on the horizon, there is work to do. But a win in both facets of the dual is a definite possibility.
“The guy’s undefeated, No. 1 ranked, and we got work to do to beat him, and we’re about hard work,” Brands said. “We got to be ready to wrestle seven minutes, and we will be. We will be.”