Hoosiers split last 2 meets before Big Ten tourney

This weekend signaled the end of the regular season for the IU wrestling team with a pair of crucial road matches. IU defeated No. 22 Michigan State on Friday 23-15 before losing to No. 9 Wisconsin 21-13 on Sunday.\nDuring Friday’s match at MSU, No. 9 Angel Escobedo scored a major victory against No. 7 Franklin Gomez in the final 10 seconds of the third period after a back-and-forth battle for the lead. Down by one, Escobedo managed to post a reversal and near fall to seal the win for the Hoosiers 11-7. \nAlong with the victories came a few losses, including a match in which IU freshman Trevor Perry suffered his first conference loss of the season, against John Murphy in the 174-pound weight class. Perry, who is now 7-1 on the season, scored the first points of the match but was unable to keep the lead as Murphy won 8-4.\nTop-ranked Spartan Nick Simmons jumped up a weight class this weekend to fill in for his injured brother, leaving sophomore Andrae Hernandez to take on Clint Frutiger in the 133-pound weight class. Hernandez dominated the match with a 16-1 technical fall, while Simmons went on to defeat Hoosier sophomore Scott Kelly by a disqualification in the 141 pound class.\nSunday’s match against Wisconsin started off with three straight losses for the Hoosiers. IU’s first win came during the fourth match of the day when junior Brandon Becker took down No. 5 Craig Henning. \nNot thrown off by his first conference loss of the season Friday, Perry jumped back into competition by taking down Wisconsin’s Mike Felling to begin the Hoosiers’ run at the upset. Perry’s victory brought the Hoosiers within eight points, and a consecutive victory by teammate junior Marc Bennett brought them within five with three matches remaining.\n“It felt good to get that win,” Perry said. “It was good to dig myself out of that hole and wrestle better than I did Friday.”\nDespite a strong resurgence, IU lost two of the remaining three matches, bringing the final score to 21-13. Escobedo won the last match of the day to close out his season.\n“I’m really excited about my performance,” Escobedo said. “I just hope to go on and take a Big Ten title and hopefully a national title.”\nNext up for the Hoosiers is the Big Ten tournament, which begins March 3 in East Lansing, Mich.\nAlthough the last match of the season was a loss, IU coach Duane Goldman is optimistic about the postseason.\n“We’ve got a lot of training to do,” he said. “Hopefully, we can qualify as many guys as we can and head to nationals.”