No. 22 Indiana wrestling jumped out to a 9-8 lead in the first five matches of the dual. Just as momentum started to build for the Hoosiers, Ohio State returned from intermission and delivered four victories including two technical falls and a pin to seal its 27-13 victory Sunday at Wilkinson Hall in Bloomington.
Despite the loss, Indiana head coach Angel Escobedo was pleased with the development he saw from his crew on Sunday.
“If you look at the majority of our matches and you look at the third period ... we are in better shape than a lot of teams in the country; we truly believe that,” Escobedo said post-dual. “If you look at our third periods we were scoring a lot of points, we were getting stalling calls, we were pushing the pace winning or losing.”
Escobedo placed an emphasis on stability of both his team and the wrestlers as individuals.
“If you wanna build a stable house its gonna take you some time so that it doesn’t blow in the wind when the storm comes,” Escobedo said. “This house is not gonna blow away ... we are here to stay.”
National expectations coming into this dual could be described as low, but Escobedo claims that those close to the program knew what they were capable of.
“We want to make this one of the toughest places to wrestle and it is starting to get to that place,” Escobedo said. “We had a top four team, I’m sure they probably came in thinking they are winning all 10. Well, our wrestlers and the fan base, we thought differently, and we acted differently.”
Escobedo’s squad raked in three ranked victories this evening on the backs of graduate students No. 18 Jacob Moran, No. 31 Angelo Rini and redshirt sophomore No. 21 Gabriel Sollars. All three wrestlers stayed poised and upset their Buckeye opponents.
Sollars defeated No.18 redshirt sophomore Seth Shumate at 197 lbs. to kickstart the dual and give the Hoosiers a 3-0 lead. Sollars hit a patented roll through off his opponents shot to pick up a solid 7 points. He held on for the 10-6 victory.
Rini captured a 6-3 decision over No. 10 Nic Bouzakis at 133 lbs. with a powerful leg attack in the third period after evading some of Bouzakis’ best attacks throughout the match. The win marks Rini’s first top 10 victory and third ranked win of the season.
“There is no moment that's too small or too big, you’re just even keeled,” Escobedo said. “When It’s time to capitalize on the moment, you do it like Angelo did.”
In similar fashion, No.18 Moran dispatched redshirt sophomore No. 16 Brendan McCrone in the third period with a methodical single leg finish. Moran stayed patient the whole match waiting for the opportune moment to strike. His third period takedown proved enough to upset the Buckeye 3-2.
“I knew that guy was really long, and he is really good in those scrambling positions, so I wanted to be cautious and still get to my attacks making sure that I was finishing clean,” Moran said.
Escobedo commended his Hoosiers for their strong finishes since the start of the new year, a trait that was on display against the Buckeyes. He emphasized that elite wrestlers set themselves apart from the average by their determination to close out matches decisively. He pointed to Moran, Rini and Sollars as prime examples of that mindset on Sunday, highlighting their composure and execution in securing victories.
Redshirt Sophomore No. 18 Tyler Lillard bounced back from last weeks loss to Northwestern by defeating redshirt freshman Brock Herman via major decision. Lillard pushed the pace throughout the match and hit a clean whip over off his opponent's shot to secure the 15-2 win.
“We are fighters,” Lillard said. “We are going to push each other to face these tough teams. I don’t think we ever get to hard on ourselves about the last weekend. We don’t get to high or get too low we just wrestle, we do our jobs, go back to school, go back to practice and do it all over again next weekend.”
The Hoosiers will travel out to the Cornhusker State to take on another force within the Big Ten in Nebraska. That dual will take place at 1:30 p.m. Feb. 16 at the Devaney Center in Lincoln, Nebraska.
“We know how good we are, and we know what we are capable of,” Moran said. “Even though we weren’t able to pull off the win and the upset, it’s onto the next.”
