The No. 3 Iowa men’s wrestling team shellacked Northwestern in a 37-3 showing inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Sunday.

The Hawkeyes’ best-ranked wrestlers put on a clinic with a slate of technical falls and flurry of match and team points in the penultimate dual meet of the season.

Iowa’s No. 2 165-pounder Michael Caliendo made quick work of Northwestern’s No. 18 Maxx Mayfield, working the leg attack again and again into a technical fall whooping. Likewise, top-ranked 197-pounder Stephen Buchanan, although not perfect, dominated No. 14 Evan Bates in an 18-2 technical fall.

“[Caliendo is] fun to watch — he’s a fan favorite,” head coach Tom Brands said. “If you’re making your opponent look bad then you’re really doing your job well. And that’s not a knock on the opposition, but that’s the name of the game in this sport.”

And the Hawkeyes’ No. 3 149-pounder Kyle Parco picked up a ranked win over No. 25 Sam Cartella in a 9-2 decision.

Beat downs to start

Starting the match at 157 pounds, Miguel Estrada tipped things off for the Hawkeyes with Northwestern’s No. 9 Trevor Chumbley. Uneventful for the first two periods, escapes marked the only points and brought overtime.

There, Chumbley hooked Estrada’s leg and rolled him onto his back into an awkward three-point takedown for a 4-1 win that put Northwestern up three in team points.

Extending a foot back into the circle to complete a pair of takedowns, Caliendo took a quick 6-1 lead just a minute into his 165-pound bout. Mayfield’s feet too open, Caliendo’s quick leg shots became his bread and butter, up 15-4 after one.

Caliendo worked the feint nicely too, a final takedown 30 seconds into the second period ending this one early with a 19-4 technical fall worth five team points.

“Caliendo is one of the most offensive guys in the room, and being after him, it’s definitely a good kick in the butt, right?” teammate and 174-pounder Nelson Brands said. “So if he’s putting on a show like that then you better put on some sort of show as well.”

Starting at 174 pounds to give Patrick Kennedy a rest, Brands made his return to the mat for the Black and Gold with Aiden Vandenbush. He pushed a leg attack on the mat into a three-point takedown and shot again and once more for a 9-2 lead after one.

Pushing Vandenbush into a stall warning, Brands kept attacking into an 18-5 lead for the third period. He closed it out as he flipped Vandenbush’s leg attack into a final takedown for the 21-5 win and 10-3 Hawkeye advantage.

Having injured his LCL in early December, Brands’ return comes just a day before the eight-week timetable assigned to him. He said it feels “decent.”

“The thing is with competing, especially in Carver-Hawkeye, you’ve got so much adrenaline going, so you don’t notice it,” he said after the match. “So that’s the best part about competing is once you step on the mat and that whistle blows, pretty much everything goes out the window. Dealing with it has been great, and I got enough rest, and hopefully it’ll hold out for my last season.”

Iowa’s No. 8 184-pounder Gabe Arnold saw Jon Halvorsen next, the former wrestling with muscle and physicality throughout, including on his first takedown a minute in. Dropping Halvorsen to the mat, he shot at the right leg when Halvorsen rose back up and tripped him into three more points for a 6-1 lead after one.

Halvorsen really just defended by stalling, but Arnold caught him in a flip and a pull down to the mat for a 10-1 lead after two. Unable to find a technical fall win, Arnold’s 13-2 major decision put the Hawkeyes up at 14-3.

“That’s what you want; that’s what you’ve got to have,” his coach said of him after the meet. “Hey, way to get it going; way to put points on that board; way to score takedowns. We’ve got to keep it moving in the right direction.”

Shaky to start, Buchanan and Bates were locked side-by-side on the mat with the Hawkeye in takedown trouble. Working out of it and into three points, Buchanan pushed a Bates shoulder blade into the mat for a four-point near-fall.

And while Bates took his share of shots to keep Buchanan very honest, Buchanan’s power was as unbeatable as ever. Up 11-0 after one, Buchanan suffered a reversal to give Bates two but tackled one more takedown into an 18-2 technical fall and 19-3 Iowa team lead into the break.

Beat downs to end

Iowa’s No. 11 Ben Kueter shot into a takedown just seconds into his 285-pound match with Dirk Morley — and shot again and again, up 15-4 after one period. Within the blink of an eye, Kueter tripped Morley into his final takedown for a 20-4 technical fall.

“The biggest thing is I get better every time I step on the mat,” Kueter said. “Every match, I just keep getting better and better, and that’s just how I’m wired as a person and everything I do in life.”

The Hawkeyes up, 24-3, the match went back to 125 pounds with No. 26 Joey Cruz for Dedrick Navarro. Hooking a leg shot, Cruz worked a squirming Navarro around the mat but couldn’t finish the takedown, instead finally finishing through Navarro’s defense at the end of the period for three.

A second takedown gave Cruz a warmer lead, and although Navarro scrambled and shot, he found nothing easy. Cruz’s 6-1 win put Iowa up, 27-3, for the 133-pound bout between Jesse Ybarra and Massey Odiotti.

Ybarra took the 3-1 lead into the second as he wrestled in Odiotti’s face, even finding a second takedown as he hooked Odiotti’s leg and tripped him down to the mat. Defending Odiotti’s shots for the rest of the contest, Ybarra’s 7-3 win put Iowa up, 30-3.

In search of some momentum to close the season, Cullan Schriever started again at 141 pounds with Northwestern’s Luis Bazan, pushing a nice takedown into some mat work for over a minute of riding time to close the first.

With a 3-0 lead, Schriever collected over three minutes of riding time before the third period. And he worked a lock on the leg into one last takedown for a satisfying 9-0 major decision win in what’s been a questionable weight class this season.

Then up at 34-3 for the final match, Parco was scoreless until he scrambled around Cartella into a three-point takedown with 45 seconds left in the first. But he lacked offense to close the match, keeping his 3-0 lead until a pair of takedowns in the final period for a 9-2 win and 37-3 Hawkeye victory. 

Up next

The Hawkeyes close the regular season out with their biggest test since Penn State as No. 2 Oklahoma State comes to Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Sunday at 7:30 p.m.

In a battle of two historic programs, the Cowboys are 13-0 this season, led by top-20 pound-for-pound wrestlers Dustin Plott at 184 pounds and Wyatt Hendrickson at heavyweight.

“Every week is the same, right?” Nelson Brands said. “So you’re training the same for Northwestern … you’re training the same for Oklahoma State … But the cool thing about an Okie State and Iowa dual is that it’s just electric. And especially on a Sunday night, I think it’ll be really fun here, and fun for us, and fun for the fans, and that’s all that really matters.”