The No. 11 Wisconsin wrestling team welcomed a fiery No. 10 Minnesota team to the Field House Friday night. The Badgers were coming off two consecutive wins and looking to close out their regular season at home with an upset.
After losing to lower-ranked Iowa earlier in the week, Minnesota came in with a chip on their shoulder only to be sent packing in front of a rowdy crowd of 1,272.
With the 18-17 win, Wisconsin improved to 10-3-2 (3-3-1 Big Ten) while Minnesota dropped to 9-8 (3-4 Big Ten).
The Gophers have dominated the Badgers in Madison as of late, and this looked to be the case again when the match opened up with Badger sophomore Collin Cudd losing to Minnesota senior Bobbe Lowe 5-20 in the 125 pound weight class. Things quickly got better. Wisconsin won the next four weight classes, and six of the next seven to open up a ten point lead with only two wrestlers left.
Freshman Gopher Matt Koz edged out Wisconsin junior Ryan Flaherty in the 197 pound class to bring Minnesota within seven, but without a pin the match was out of reach.
Wisconsin head coach Barry Davis played it conservative, opting to forfeit the heavy-weight match against sophomore Cole Conrad, the Minnesota wrestler ranked second in the nation for his weight class.
In doing so, he gave the Gophers six points-still one point shy of a comeback-and at the same time prevented his heavyweight-junior Lee Kraemer-from injury. This caused a lot of controversy, as Minnesota head coach J Robinson was outraged, getting in Davis' face after the match. But the confrontation did not spoil the Badger win.
\We worked on a lot of strategy this week; a lot of the little things. You aren't going to blow these guys out, you gotta win the close matches,"" Davis said.
The Badgers certainly did that, winning three of the four matches decided by three points or less.
""We did a lot of things right tonight, but we still aren't where we need to be,"" Davis added.
""I think [Davis] does a really great job of running that fine line as a coach between hard ass and friend,"" Landon from MTV's Real World said, who was on hand Friday night, honored by the program as an assistant coach.
""It's really nice to be honored. I miss it, and its probably for the best that I didn't wrestle, but at the same time I wish I was out there,"" Landon added.
Wisconsin capped off a perfect weekend to an impressive season as they squeaked out an 19-18 win Sunday over No. 18 Northwestern in Evanston, Ill. Ryan Flaherty helped give Wisconsin the win with a thrilling 6-4 victory in overtime of the 197 pound match-up.
Wisconsin now turns its focus to the Big Ten tournament March 5-6 in Iowa before heading to St. Louis for the NCAA tournament March 17-19.
