Badgers’ wrestling head coach Barry Davis has lots of good memories in Iowa City, but he may try to forget last Friday night.
As a wrestler at Iowa, Davis was a three-time individual champion and four-time All-American. But Wisconsin suffered their fifth straight loss to the No. 3 Iowa Hawkeyes (5-1 Big Ten, 9-2 overall) to drop to 1-5 in the Big Ten and 3-5 overall.
“We're going through a tough stretch, but we're at where we're at, so we've got to sit together and control our minds,” Coach Davis said after the dual to UWBadgers.com.
The Hawkeyes dominated the Badgers, scoring five bonus-point wins out of their total eight. The dual started out with a pin by Iowa’s Sammy Brooks, and the Hawkeyes never looked back after their fast start.
Despite the overall loss, seniors Connor Medbery and Isaac Jordan both had impressive wins for Wisconsin. Medbery won in dominant fashion to earn his 101st win of his career. The number two overall wrestler continued his undefeated season with an early 6-1 start in the first period, thanks to two quick takedowns. He punctuated his performance with a technical fall in the third period, winning the match with a final score of 18-1.
In the last dual against Penn State, Isaac Jordan won 6-4 in a thrilling sudden-death match. The senior from Urbana, Ohio again came up last weekend with late heroics to get a 3-1 victory. In a cagey match that was 1-1 after the first three periods, Jordan took down his opponent Joseph Gunther with a single-leg shot to clinch another last second victory.
Barry Davis may have had good memories at Iowa himself, but he’s telling his team to not dwell on this dual.
“We've got to go back tomorrow and get back in the weight room and move forward to get ready for Purdue next Friday,” Davis said.
