Iowa men’s wrestling trounces Purdue in West Lafayette

The No. 2 Hawkeyes defeated the Boilermakers, 37-6, inside Holloway Gymnasium on Sunday afternoon.

Jerod Ringwald

Iowa head coach Tom Brands watches action while Iowa associate head coach Terry Brands grabs Tom’s shoulder during a wrestling meet between No. 2 Iowa and Illinois at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City on Friday, Jan. 6, 2023. The Hawkeyes defeated the Illini, 25-19.

Kenna Roering, Sports Reporter
January 8, 2023

The No. 2 Iowa men’s wrestling team took down Purdue, 37-6, inside Holloway Gymnasium in West Lafayette, Indiana, on Sunday.

Sunday’s victory marks the Hawkeyes’ 34th consecutive dual win over Purdue and puts them at 9-0 overall and 2-0 in the Big Ten.

“It’s on to Northwestern,” Iowa head coach Tom Brands said in a statement following the dual. “We have to be healthy and put our best team on the mat.”

The dual opened at 125 pounds where Iowa’s top-ranked three-time national champion Spencer Lee had an early scare against Purdue’s ninth-ranked Matt Ramos. Ramos, the 2022 U.S. Open Champion at 57 kg, took down Lee early in the first period and nearly pinned him to take an 8-1 advantage.

Lee, a two-time Dan Hodge trophy winner, kept his composure and earned a takedown and six back points before sealing his 45th consecutive dual win and seventh bonus point victory of the season with a pin in 2:54. 

 

“He was game, he was ready to go,” Lee told BTN after the dual. “He’s a great opponent. I even told him after the match, ‘Nice throw.’ He tossed me. He stepped in and threw me. But the match is seven minutes long, so I just kept wrestling hard and kept trying to score points.”

The 133-pound bout also started in favor of Purdue as Boilermaker Dustin Norris got on the board with a takedown against Hawkeye Brody Teske.

Teske, a Big 12 champion transfer from UNI, responded with a takedown of his own and a four-point near fall at the end of the first period to regain the lead.  Teske never looked back as he cruised to a 16-4 major decision. 

This was Teske’s first time competing since defeating Cal Baptist’s Hunter Leake, 6-4, on Nov. 13, 2022. 

Iowa dropped its first match of the dual at 141 pounds. Cullan Schriever, who is 7-4 on the season at 133 pounds, filled in for two-time All-American Real Woods and fell, 6-2, against Purdue’s 16th-ranked Parker Filius.

Fifth-ranked 149-pounder Max Murin got the Hawkeyes back on track with a 22-7 victory over Boilermaker Trey Kruse.  Murin controlled the pace and scored 10 takedowns en route to his fourth tech fall of the season and ninth bonus-point victory in 12 matches. 

Iowa’s Caleb Rathjen bumped up to 157 pounds to face No. 2 Kendall Coleman. Rathjen put up an impressive fight but ultimately fell, 3-2. 

Hawkeye Aiden Riggins, the fourth true freshman to start in a dual meet this season, posted a 9-4 decision at 165 pounds over Boilermaker Stoney Buell in his Hawkeye debut. 

The two-time high school state champion out of Waverly-Shell Rock was filling in for 13th-ranked Patrick Kennedy, who earned a 15-4 major decision over Illinois’ 11th-ranked Danny Braunagel on Friday, Jan. 6. 

RELATED: Live results: Iowa men’s wrestling opens Big Ten schedule against Illinois – The Daily Iowan 

Iowa’s 16th-ranked Nelson Brands, who was coming off a 2-1 tiebreaker loss to Illinois’ 10th-ranked Edmond Ruth, rebounded on Sunday with a 5-0 decision over Cooper Noehre at 174 pounds.

This was Noehre’s first ever match at 174 pounds as the junior out of Greenfield, Indiana, traditionally competes at 157 or 165 pounds for the Boilermakers. 

The Hawkeyes’ eighth-ranked 184-pounder Abe Assad tallied his second fall of the season on Sunday in 4:15 against Boilermaker Ben Vanadia. 

“My spiral ride was there, I hit that,” Assad said in a statement from Iowa Athletics.“I wasn’t forcing it a lot, hit him with it and sucked him back.  I readjusted there, caught his arm and settled in for the fall. It’s stuff I work on a lot in practice, so it’s nice to see it work out on the mat.”

Iowa’s sixth-ranked 197-pounder Jacob Warner rebounded from his last-second loss to Illinois’ No. 10 Zach Braunagel on Sunday with a 16-4 major decision over Hayden Filipovich.

A forfeit by Purdue at 285 pounds handed Iowa’s third-ranked Tony Cassioppi his 13th win of the season and secured the Hawkeyes their 12th consecutive dual victory.

RELATED: Tony Cassioppi propels Iowa men’s wrestling over Illinois in Big Ten opener – The Daily Iowan 

Iowa is back in action against Northwestern on Friday at 8 p.m. inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena. The dual will be broadcast on ESPNU.