No. 4 Iowa takes down No. 16 Lehigh, 28-14
Winning 7 of 10 matches, the No. 4 Iowa Hawkeyes defeated the No. 16 Lehigh Mountain Hawks, 28-14.
Iowa’s Pat Lugo wrestles Lehigh’s Jimmy Hoffman during a wrestling dual-meet between Iowa and Lehigh at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Saturday, Dec. 8, 2018. Lugo, who is ranked tenth at 149, defeated Hoffman 12-3, as the Hawkeyes defeated the Mountain Hawks, 28-14.
December 9, 2018
As “We Will Rock You” filled the Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Saturday night, No. 1 Spencer Lee ran out of the tunnel to do his part in No. 4 Iowa’s 28-14 dominating win over No. 16 Lehigh.
Lee defeated his opponent 15-0 with 27 seconds left in the first period, scoring three 4-point near falls.
“I’m the first guy so I feel like it’s my job to get the ball rolling, score as many points as I can, and get the team fired up in a good way- not too excited, just ready to go when it’s time,” Lee said. “If we start at another weight- it’s that guy’s job.”
The next three wrestlers, No.11 Austin DeSanto, No.20 Max Murin, and No.10 Pat Lugo fell short against their Iowa State opponents last weekend, but all were able to get back on track against Lehigh. They all followed Lee’s lead, scoring bonus points for the Hawkeyes.
“Coach has been on us all week,” Murin said. “We had a bad week last week and we can’t do anything about that now- we just have to learn from it. I feel like we did a pretty good job fixing our mistakes and capitalizing.”
DeSanto defeated Brandon Paetzell 19-8 at 133, scoring 16 points off of takedowns. Murin tallied 4 takedowns of his own, a near fall, an escape, and a point for riding time to beat his opponent 14-3. Lugo beat Jimmy Hoffman 12-3, only allowing him to score on escapes. No. 4 Alex Marinelli also earned bonus points for Iowa in his 21-5 win over Trey Cornish.
No. 5 Kaleb Young faced the Mountain Hawks’ No. 15 Josh Humphrey at 157. Young improved his record to 6-0, winning 4-1 off a takedown, escape, and a riding point.
Another featured match was at 184, where No. 14 Cash Wilcke wrestled No. 6 Ryan Preisch. After a scoreless first period, Preisch found himself leading, 3-1, going into the third. Wilcke registered an escape and a takedown to take the lead, 4-3. Preisch wasn’t done yet, though, tallying an escape and sending the match into overtime. With about 15 seconds left, Wilcke scored two points for a takedown, upsetting his top-10 opponent.
“I saw Wilcke in a slow-pace, strategic match,” head coach Tom Brands said. “He started to smell blood a little bit, that guy was starting to fade and we picked it up. By the end of the third period, I was barking at our guy, ‘controlled sprints, controlled sprints,’ because he’s really good there.”
Iowa fell to Lehigh at 174, 197 and and 285. Jeremiah Moody was Iowa’s answer to an empty roster spot at 174, and he fell on a major decision to No. 6 Jordan Kutler.
Despite these three losses, the Hawkeyes’ seven other matches were more than enough to keep the Iowa wrestling squad undefeated. As Iowa improves their record to 6-0, they shift their focus onto Midlands where they plan to bring more than a complete squad to compete.
