The Ohio wrestling team accomplished exactly what it wanted to this weekend. The Bobcats forgot about the close loss to rival Northern Illinois a week ago and bounced back to two victories against tough opponents.
But the fashion they did it in could not have provided any more irony or drama.
The Bobcats (8-3, 2-1 Mid-American Conference) closed out two matches this weekend on the final match of the day, beginning with a win Friday at home against Cleveland State, 22-18, then sweeping the weekend at Buffalo, 16-14, on Sunday.
The most dramatic came Sunday when Jeremiah Beltran (Heavyweight) won in overtime, 6-4, to earn three points for the team, pushing the Bobcats ahead of the Bulls. One week ago Beltran dropped his match to lose to Northern Illinois, 19-17.
I think during the Northern Illinois match he made a couple mistakes and fell behind and today he didn't make those mistakes
coach Joel Greenlee said. He didn't wrestle great but he didn't make those mistakes.
Other winners in the match included Matt Smith (125), who won by fall, Anthony Carrizales (133, 8-5), Mike Allen (149, 2-1), and Vinny DiGiovanni (165, 6-3).
I don't think there was a big difference in terms of how we wrestled Carrizales said. It's more like everything didn't fall into place and we weren't able to pull it out.
Ohio headed into this meet knowing the team wouldn't have its top wrestler, No. 2 Jake Percival, who was rested for his match tomorrow against No. 4 Matt Gentry of Stanford. Also not wrestling yesterday was Ed Willis (174), who is nursing a rib injury.
Any time there's guys missing
you kinda feel like you have to step up
Carrizales said. But I mean
there are other guys in our room. Everyone in our room works hard
and overall
the guys here are going to go out there and do their best to win.
The win against Buffalo, though, came two days after the Bobcats rallied from nine points down to defeat Cleveland State.
The highlight of that match came when Jon Spires (141) managed to score three points in the final minute, including two in the final 30 seconds, to win 5-4.
I think it comes down to conditioning
really
Spires said. He was pretty strong and going pretty hard for two periods. He has a tendency to get tired and (out of) gas
and I felt him kind of let up a little bit
