Regular season ends with loss to Wildcats

The IU wrestling team closed out its regular season after suffering a 27-7 loss against Northwestern when it traveled to Evanston, Ill., on Friday.

Many matches were close, but the Hoosiers could not hold onto their early lead.
The team started strong with freshman Luke Sheridan (184 pounds) defeating Robert Kellogg with a 4-3 victory.

No. 3 senior Matt Powless (197 pounds) put more points on the board for the Hoosiers as he defeated longtime competitor John Schoen with a 10-2 major decision.

This was Powless’s ninth major decision of the season, as well as his 119th career victory, tying him with Brandon Becker for sixth place in Indiana’s all-time rankings for career wins.  

IU heavyweight senior Adam Chalfant went head-to-head with No. 13 Mike McMullan, ending with a loss of 5-4.

The Wildcats continued to defeat the Hoosiers for the rest of the meet with very close wins.

“Zach Zimmer wrestled a ranked kid, and it was a really tough match,” IU Coach Duane Goldman said. “Sawyer Morris also gave a really good effort.”
IU senior Matt Ortega (141 pounds) lost by one point to Colin Shober with a score of 4-3.

The meet ended with a close match at the 174-pound weight class between IU sophomore Ryan LeBlanc and No. 12 Lee Munster.

After three periods of barely scoring, Leblanc forced extra time against Munster, ultimately losing by a sudden victory of 3-1.

“We started off well,” Goldman said. “Adam Chalfant and Ryan Leblanc both wrestled really good matches against their opponents. Unfortunately, they came up just a little short, but they wrestled really hard.”

After Friday’s meet, the team is now looking ahead to the Big Ten Championships.

“We’ll be focusing on things more independently with our guys, depending on our seed and depending on whom we draw,” Goldman said.

The Big Ten Championships will be March 3 and 4 at Purdue University.

Goldman will also continue to work with No. 18 redshirt freshman Taylor Walsh to get him back and ready to wrestle after suffering a knee injury while wrestling against Purdue.

“We need to focus on getting him healthy,” Goldman said. “He’s close to being where he needs to be, but we still need to work on sharpening up on some
personal skills.”

Powless has also continued to work with his knee injury through practice and treatment.

“It’s definitely better,” Powless said. “I’m pretty much 100 percent.”