By Ryan Suchomel
\nIowa City Press-Citizen<\/p>\n
Iowa wrestling wants to be No. 1. At everything.<\/p>\n
To that end, they are inviting 16,000 fans to Carver-Hawkeye Arena for Saturday’s dual meet against No. 1 Oklahoma State (3-0), the defending national champions.<\/p>\n
Iowa hopes to break the NCAA wrestling attendance record of 15,646, currently held by the University of Minnesota.<\/p>\n
“I think it’d be awesome, “senior Joe Johnston said. “People will start talking about Iowa wrestling and how great it is again.”<\/p>\n
The record was set on Feb. 1, 2002, in a dual between Iowa and Minnesota in Minneapolis. Overall, Iowa has been a part of every one of the 35 best-attended duals.<\/p>\n
But they did not host No. 1.<\/p>\n
“We pride ourselves at Iowa of having the best fans and the best support, “Iowa coach Jim Zalesky said. “Iowa is in the record … but it was up at Minnesota. We’d like to have it back here at home.”<\/p>\n
Carver-Hawkeye Arena holds 15,500 for basketball games, but special permission was given to put the wrestling mat on a stage and put seats on the floor. The wrestling arena record is 15,291, set when Iowa defeated Iowa State in 1992.<\/p>\n
“It’s more for bragging rights, “Iowa assistant coach Tim Hartung said. “It’s being part of a historical event. It’s a chance to see two great programs going at it.”<\/p>\n
Iowa and Oklahoma State have combined for 52 national titles. The Cowboys lead the series against Iowa 21-16-1, and beat the Hawkeyes for the fifth straight time, 26-12, last season in Stillwater, Okla.<\/p>\n
“Anytime these two programs get together, it’s a big meet, “Zalesky said. “It’s the best two programs. I’m not sure of any sport where you get (52) national titles between two programs.<\/p>\n
“I don’t know if there is any other sport that has that, but if there is, let me know.”<\/p>\n
The meet also marks the first time ex-Hawkeye Steve Mocco returns to Iowa City as a Cowboy. The defending national champion at heavyweight will face Iowa sophomore Matt Fields (11-2), who lost three times in three tries against Mocco last season.<\/p>\n
“I want to get a chance to meet him, especially at home, “Fields said. “It’s a big chance for me to prove that I can beat the best people.”<\/p>\n
Zalesky said he didn’t expect fans to give Mocco a warm reception.<\/p>\n
“When you come here, don’t expect anyone to be too friendly to you, “Zalesky said. “Don’t expect to see any ‘Welcome Back Steve,’ or ‘I Love You Steve’ signs anywhere.”<\/p>\n
For No. 6 Iowa (3-0) the meet will also be a measuring stick as they head into National Duals and the Big Ten dual season.<\/p>\n
“Any support we can get, we feel is going to help, “Zalesky said.<\/p>\n
Reach Ryan Suchomel at 339-7368 or rsuchomel@press-citizen.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Ryan Suchomel Iowa City Press-Citizen Iowa wrestling wants to be No. 1. At everything. To that end, they are inviting 16,000 fans to Carver-Hawkeye Arena for Saturday’s dual meet against No. 1 Oklahoma State (3-0), the defending national champions. Iowa hopes to break the NCAA wrestling attendance record of 15,646, currently held by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrestling"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2B7Di-uC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1898\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}