The Ohio wresting team epitomized disappointment after dropping its biggest match of the season to conference foe Northern Illinois.
After jumping out to a 7-0 lead against last season's co-Mid-American Conference champions, Ohio (6-3, 1-1 MAC) lost five of the next eight matches to lose 19-17.
Quite frankly I'm embarrassed at how our team performed
coach Joel Greenlee said. After the first two matches you'd think we got it locked up. And we let it slip away from us in the second half.
In a match that went back and forth for much of the latter half, the high point for Ohio came after Anthony Carrizales (133-pound weight class) won a decision against 11th-ranked Sam Hiatt in overtime.
As far as how I beat him I think it was just more strategy Carrizales said. If anything in the past when he's beaten me
I've kind of let him do the things that he does and this time I tried to wrestle more my match - tried to take him out of his game plan
and it worked.
In the match, Carrizales jumped out to a 5-1 lead before Hiatt ran off four straight points, including his final point that Carrizales conceded in an escape. Carrizales then scored a takedown as time expired at the end of the first overtime to win 7-5.
Obviously I'd taken him down a couple times in the match
he said. I knew I could take him down. It was just a matter of wrestling my match. I was confident in what I was doing as long as I wrestled my match.
After Carrizales' upset, though, there was very little for Ohio to cheer about.
Jon Spires (141) dropped the next match, 9-5, in what Greenlee said was one of the two most disappointing matches of the afternoon. The other came when Ed Willis (174) gave up six team points after being pinned.
I just got caught
Willis said. I mean I was going pretty good. I took him down right away...I felt good in practice all week the last couple weeks. I'm in really damn good shape. And I was going out there to win. I let everybody down. Six points - six points is a match. That's the difference between winning and losing.
The fall culminated after Jeremiah Beltran (HWT) lost 5-4 in the final match of the day. Heading into the match, Ohio was holding on to a one-point lead.
He just didn't do the things he needed to do to win
Greenlee said. He's got a guy out there that's pretty tough and he's got an opportunity to pull the guy down in a front headlock three or four times
but
to me
basically it's (that) he doesn't have enough confidence in himself to hang with it
