IU grapplers finish in 10th place at Big Ten Championships; 5 advance to NCAAs

With 43.5 points, the IU wrestling team finished in 10th place in the Big Ten Championships this weekend at Assembly Hall. \nFive Hoosiers, senior Joe Dubuque, freshman Andrae Hernandez, and sophomores Brandon Becker, Max Dean and Dave Herman earned spots at the NCAA Championships March 16-18 in Oklahoma City.\nThe Hoosiers started out slowly in the tournament and compiled a 7-17 record with every wrestler eliminated from the championship bracket by the end of the second session Saturday.\n"We had guys that were unseeded that lost to higher seeds," IU coach Duane Goldman said about the first day of the tournament. "It wasn't anything that went wrong... it's tough to win those."\nOne of the biggest losses for the Hoosiers in the first day was for senior Brady Richardson, the Hoosiers' captain. Richardson, the No. 12-ranked wrestler in the 197-pound weight class, was a two-time NCAA qualifier hoping to make it to the tournament for a third time. In his first match, Richardson fell to Nathan Moore of Purdue 7-1, before being pinned by Dan Erekson of Iowa in the wrestleback bracket -- the consolation competition -- failing to secure a seventh-place finish that would have qualified him for NCAAs. Goldman said that Richardson had been slowed by injuries in the last week.\n"We hoped to get him through the tournament, but it just wasn't meant to be," Goldman said. "That's unfortunate for him because he's a great wrestler, a great representative for the school, but for him not to be able to train and work out, it's difficult."\nEven Dubuque, the No. 1 \nwrestler in the nation, had his 28-match winning streak snapped on the first day, falling Saturday to Illinois' Kyle Ott 5-4 in overtime. The winning point for Ott came in the tiebreaker period when Dubuque was penalized one point for a false start.\nBut Dubuque responded well to the loss, as did the five IU wrestlers still alive after the first day of the tournament. \nIn the wrestleback bracket, Dubuque faced Collin Cudd of Wisconsin, whom Dubuque had beaten in the opening round of the tournament 10-4. Dubuque came away on the winning end of the rematch as well this time with a 12-1 major decision. \nHe faced Northwestern's John Velez in the third-place match. The two wrestlers exchanged an escape point, but Dubuque was able to keep Valez down longer and score a bonus point with 1:04 riding time to win 2-1.\nBecker also came away with a third-place finish after losing his first match to Joe Johnston of Iowa 4-2 in the quarterfinals. Becker rolled through the wrestleback bracket, posting a 17-2 technical fall and 7-1 and 5-4 decisions before defeating Steve Luke of Michigan 6-0 in the third-place match.\nMuch like Becker, Dean qualified for NCAAs after loosing his first-round match. Dean fell to top-seeded and top-ranked wrestler Ryan Churella of Michigan in an 11-3 major decision for Churella. \n"I went out there with the attitude that I'm going to give it all I got, leave it all on the mat and hope for the best," Dean said. "He's just a really talented wrestler he's a senior; he's pretty tough."\nAfter posting a couple of wins in the wrestleback, Dean fell again with a 3-2 loss to Mike Poeta of Illinois in his first match Sunday. But he bounced back and beat Purdue's Dan Bedoy in the fifth-place match.\n"Win or lose, you have to put the last match behind you and just focus on your next match," Dean said. "(Sunday) I knew I was going to have two matches no matter what. But in my mind I always had one match."\nHerman and Hernandez both entered Sunday needing to win their seventh-place matches to secure automatic bids to Oklahoma City. Herman came through with a 3-1 sudden victory over Matt Lossen of Illinois when he scored a takedown 20 seconds into the overtime period. Hernandez's win was a little more decisive, as he beat Ohio State's Reece Humphrey 8-1.\n"It means a lot," Hernandez said about making nationals his freshman year. "The Big Ten's a tough tournament and going to nationals as a freshman, it's real big."\nAfter a disappointing first day of the tournament, the Hoosiers went 7-1 Sunday in an effort Goldman said he was pleased with.\n"We had our guys that were our strong point getters still in the tournament," Goldman said. "So it wasn't intermixed with some guys that were non-seeds. We came in with our five guys that have really been five of our strong contributors all year and they had a good day, they only lost one match. They wrestled well and showed what they were capable of"