A few surprise weigh ins, and several wrestlers that haven’t been in the starting lineups for these teams threw a couple of curveballs, but it was still an excellent matchup between the #2 and #3 ranked teams in the country. Here’s how Iowa was able to pull out the 21-16 victory:
125: (4) Troy Spratley (16-3) v. (16) Joey Cruz (10-7): Some good movement and action by both wrestlers out of the gate. Spratley gets the first single leg and finishes. Spratley had a couple of good mat returns and puts on a good ride, riding Cruz out and ending the period up 3-0 and almost two minutes of riding time. Spratley took down to start 2P and got out fairly fast to go up 4-0, Spratley immediately got back on a single leg and finished easily. Spratley let Cruz up to narrow the score a little to 7-1. Spratley had another single to go up 10-1 and rode Cruz out. Cruz was down to start 3, Spratley released him immediately (10-2).
Spratley shot again, got a leg and was able to turn in to go up 13-2. Released him. 13-3, then another takedown to go up 16-3 and tried to turn him but couldn’t quite get the TF wining 17-3. Hopefully the missed TF doesn’t come back to haunt OSU. OSU 4-0
133: Rin Sakamoto (0-0) v. (2) Drake Ayala (14-1): Rin Sakamoto, a highly touted Freshman Japanese wrestler for OSU was a surprise weigh in, along with Witcraft. Sakamoto got the call (!) and we got to see if Rin is as advertised.
