Minnesota reclaims Big Ten title; Hoosiers place 8th

EVANSTON, ILL. -- The Minnesota Golden Gophers reclaimed their Big Ten title Sunday with a 23.5 point victory against their closest competitor, Illinois. IU finished eighth in the tournament, 5.5 points behind Michigan State.\n"It just feels great," Minnesota 157-pound second-place finisher Luke Becker said. "We came in here with a goal, wrestled some amazing matches and walked out Big Ten champions."\nMany of the 5,000 plus who piled into Welsh-Ryan Arena were sporting University of Iowa colors, and although the Hawkeyes finished third as a team, few said they were disappointed by their individual marks. \nThe first three championship bouts became Iowa victories as Jody Strittmatter (125), Eric Juergens (136), and Doug Schwab (141) defeated their opponents by a combined score of 28-12.\nMinnesota's Jared Lawrence pulled off the only upset of the championship round when he scored a 9-5 decision over top-ranked Adam Tirapelle (Illinois). It was a sweet victory for the 149-pound Lawrence, who had lost to Tirapelle in a tight 3-2 match earlier this season. Lawrence was later named wrestler of the championships.\nIowa's T.J. Williams utilized his long reach to take advantage of Becker as he secured the title with a 15-7 major decision. Wisconsin's Donny Pritzlaff won his third consecutive Big Ten title at 165 pounds after a close 3-2 match against Illinois' Matt Lackey. \nMichigan's Otto Olson nearly lost his victory after a headbutt allowed tournament surprise No. 6 seed Ryan Hieber (OSU) to pull within two points. Olson held him off for the remaining 23 seconds and took the 6-3 victory. \nAfter Nate Patrick defeated IU's Viktor Sveda for the 184-pound title, the battle of the upsets occurred. No one expected to see No. 7 seed Jon Bush (Penn State) and No. 5 Pat Quirk (Illinois) battling for the title. Quirk pulled off a two-point takedown late in the third period to seal the 5-2 victory. \nEveryone was expecting freshman standout Tommy Rowlands of OSU to ease his way through the tournament and walk out with the heavyweight title. But it was another freshman, Minnesota's Garrett Lowney, who ended up walking away with that honor.\nDespite Rowlands's disappointing performance, he was named freshman of the year, as voted by the Big Ten coaches. Illinois's Mark Johnson was named coach of the year, while Juergens took home wrestler of the year honors.\nFox Sports Chicago will show the finals of the 2001 Big Ten Wrestling Championship at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.