Pat Galbincea
\nPlain Dealer Reporter<\/p>\n
Auburn Hills, Mich. — It takes a special athlete to enjoy competing in a sport as hard and brutal and mentally demanding as college wrestling.<\/p>\n
Winners of NCAA titles experience a joy of euphoria, and title round losers suffer bitter depression or anger. That’s why normally happy-go-lucky North Royalton resident Ryan Lang was distraught after losing Saturday night in the 141-pound finals of the 2007 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships in front of 17,780 at The Palace in Auburn Hills.<\/p>\n
Minnesota beat out Iowa State, 98 to 88,\u00bd, for the team title and had five All-Americans including Ohio natives Dustin Schlatter (third at 149) and older brother C.P. (sixth at 157) — but that number was the lowest for a title winning team since Iowa had five in 1975.<\/p>\n
Lang, a four-time state champion at St. Edward and a junior at Northwestern, dominated the first two minutes of his finals match with California-Davis senior Derek Moore, and then was beaten on a 17-2 technical fall in 5:41<\/p>\n
“This was disappointing, that’s the best word I use to describe what I’m feeling, “Lang said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have gone out so fast and rode him so hard, “he said. “I went out to control the match and for two minutes, I did. The next thing I knew, [Davis] had 17 points and the match was over.”<\/p>\n
“What happened? I’ll have to review the tape. Right now I’ll go home to be at peace with my family and recuperate, be in a circle of love and commiserate with my brother Kyle. Losing this match isn’t the end of the world.”<\/p>\n
Only two true freshmen placed among the top eight at their weights — one of whom was Ohio State freshman and St. Edward graduate Lance Palmer, who was fourth at 149 pounds. Palmer lost to defending NCAA champ Schlatter of Minnesota — a fellow four-time state champ from Massillon Perry — 1-0 in their match for third place on riding time.<\/p>\n
“College wrestling is not harder than high school unless you make it hard on yourself, “Palmer said. “It is a way bigger step, and I didn’t adapt to it very well at first. I didn’t get the takedowns I was used to getting in high school, and I had trouble getting out from the bottom. But now I find it easier to wrestle the college style.”<\/p>\n
Mike Miller (165), a freshman from Central Michigan who was one of Ohio’s finest three-time state champs at Uniontown Lake, mirrored Palmer’s words. He earned All-American honors placing eighth, a remarkable achievement considering he wasn’t even starting for the Chippewas most of the season, and entered the tournament with an 8-5 record.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t get a chance to start until our starter, Trevor Stewart, injured his ankle late in the season, “Miller said. “We’re equally matched, but in college you’ll find your technique has to be a lot better, 10 times better, than it was in high school.<\/p>\n
“My goal here was to place in the top eight and be an All-American. I did it. Next year, I’m coming here to win the championship.”<\/p>\n
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pat Galbincea Plain Dealer Reporter Auburn Hills, Mich. — It takes a special athlete to enjoy competing in a sport as hard and brutal and mentally demanding as college wrestling. Winners of NCAA titles experience a joy of euphoria, and title round losers suffer bitter depression or anger. That’s why normally happy-go-lucky North Royalton resident […]<\/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_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2524","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-EI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2524","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=2524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}