{"id":322,"date":"2005-01-11T06:03:57","date_gmt":"2005-01-11T12:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/?p=322"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T05:00:00","slug":"hawkeyes-are-matinee-idols","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/w322\/hawkeyes-are-matinee-idols\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawkeyes Are Matinee Idols"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Fresno Bee<\/a><\/p>\n

Hawkeyes are matinee idols<\/p>\n

Bulldogs prove no match for No. 8 Iowa, a 30-7 winner at the Save Mart Center.<\/p>\n

By Andy Boogaard \/ The Fresno Bee<\/p>\n

Iowa, as the most dominant college wrestling program in the land over the past 30 years, does the sport a promotional favor when it travels to oppose teams outside of the mighty Big Ten Conference.<\/p>\n

The problem for host schools, such as Fresno State on Sunday at the Save Mart Center, is it requires optimum performance just to hang with the Hawkeyes.<\/p>\n

The Bulldogs delivered the opposite in a 30-7 loss, leaving 24-year coach Dennis DeLiddo livid as a paid crowd of 6,863 left the matinee mismatch.<\/p>\n

“We really were embarrassing, “he said. “They just grinded us down, wore us out and our guys just wilted under pressure.”<\/p>\n

This isn’t novel against Iowa, ranked eighth this season after finishing second at the NCAA Championships a year ago and a 20-time national champion since 1974. Oklahoma State, with five titles, has the next-best total.<\/p>\n

The Hawkeyes functioned without peer under coach Dan Gable from 1976-97 and now are under the thumb of Iowa three-time national gold medalist Jim Zalesky.<\/p>\n

Little has changed.<\/p>\n

Only one wrestler in Iowa’s 10-man starting lineup didn’t arrive at Iowa City with a state high school championship on his r\u00e9sum\u00e9. And that wrestler, 133-pound junior Mario Galanakis, was 154-9 with 90 pins and three state bronze-medal finishes at Nodaway Valley High in Iowa.<\/p>\n

The Hawkeyes’ remaining nine starters Sunday represented 26 state prep titles in seven states. The message is obvious: Basically, Zalesky has his pick of the land in regard to recruiting.<\/p>\n

“Most of the time I think we do, “he said. “We sell tradition and the chance of being on a national championship team. Those things are important to kids.”<\/p>\n

It’s also important ” in a sport whose NCAA membership has shrunk significantly under the federal law-driven weight of gender equity ” that marquee programs such as Iowa flash their mettle from coast to coast.<\/p>\n

Their presence was most responsible for the ticket sales Sunday, one year after Fresno State drew 9,750 fans for a 26-15 loss to Iowa State (which would finish sixth nationally).<\/p>\n

“There’s great wrestling out here, “Zalesky said. “You’ve got to look at the [2004 USA] Olympic team, and California put three wrestlers on it. Plus, Dennis runs a good program, he’s got quality guys and we want to come out and help promote the sport.”<\/p>\n

Actually, given Iowa’s six freshman starters, this was a year the Hawkeyes appeared a bit vulnerable.<\/p>\n

The Bulldogs, in the best-case scenario, could have competed to about a five-point loss. But they lost three close ones ” 5-4 by Christian Bowerman to Charlie Falck at 125 pounds, 8-5 by Jim Medeiros to Joe Johnston at 157 and 3-1 in overtime by heavyweight Clint Walbeck to Matt Fields.<\/p>\n

The Medeiros-Johnston match was the feature, pitting a 14th-ranked Bulldog against a No.7 Hawkeye.<\/p>\n

Medeiros (13-5) took a 2-0 lead on a takedown 12seconds into the bout. He trailed only 6-5 before Johnston (11-3) took him down with 50seconds remaining in the third to chill the drama.<\/p>\n

Typically, the Bulldogs were aggressive for a period before being overpowered by the better-conditioned Hawkeyes.<\/p>\n

The exceptions occurred at 174pounds, where Fresno State’s Chris Gifford of Las Vegas narrowly avoided being taken down at the buzzer for a 7-6 win over fellow freshman Luke Lofthouse, and at 197pounds, where seventh-ranked Bulldogs senior Marcio Botelho of Lemoore whipped freshman Dane Pape 15-4.<\/p>\n

“Competing against a big-time school like Iowa, a win is pretty satisfying, “Botelho said after improving to 10-4. “I’m pretty happy.”<\/p>\n

As opposed to his coach, who draws more high-octane competition to town than any sport on campus, save perhaps softball.<\/p>\n

No.1 Oklahoma State was on campus three weeks ago, and No.10 Oklahoma will appear Saturday.<\/p>\n

“I’m trying to help the team, but this doesn’t help me, “DeLiddo said. “This is a mental depressor for me. In the long run, I hope we learn a lesson: If you want to be an All-American, you’ve got to put up with 7 minutes of heat.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Fresno Bee Hawkeyes are matinee idols Bulldogs prove no match for No. 8 Iowa, a 30-7 winner at the Save Mart Center. By Andy Boogaard \/ The Fresno Bee Iowa, as the most dominant college wrestling program in the land over the past 30 years, does the sport a promotional favor when it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"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-322","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-5c","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}