Strong Finish Propels Michigan to Victory at No. 10 Iowa<\/p>\n
IOWA CITY, Iowa — The No. 2-ranked University of Michigan wrestling rallied against No. 10 Iowa to boast a 21-11 road victory on Sunday (Feb. 13) at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Trailing by eight points after the opening two matches, the Wolverines (13-3-1, 5-0-1 Big Ten) posted seven victories — all by decision — in the remaining eight bouts to remain undefeated in Big Ten Conference competition.<\/p>\n
Michigan’s redshirt freshmen — Josh Churella (Northville, Mich.\/Novi HS) and Eric Tannenbaum (Naperville, Mich.\/North HS) — kicked off the comback for the Wolverines with back-to-back wins over ranked opponents at 141 and 149 pounds, respectively. Churella, ranked fifth by NWCA\/InterMat, took the early lead against 17th-ranked Alex Tsirtsis with an early first-period takedown, but after being taken down twice himself in the middle frame, the Wolverine held a narrow one-point advantage heading into the third period. With Tsirtsis selecting a neutral start, Churella scored on double-leg takedown just 17 seconds into the frame and rode out the Hawkeye wrestler en route to a 8-4 victory.<\/p>\n
In the contest’s marquee match, pitting seventh-ranked Tannenbaum against the Hawkeyes’ fifth-ranked Ty Eustice, a takedown midway through the opening period would be all the Wolverine wrestler needed to earn a 3-2 upset decision. Eustice knotted the score at two points apiece with an escape early in the middle frame, but Tannenbaum returned in kind to keep the final advantage.<\/p>\n
The Wolverine captains — fifth-year senior Ryan Bertin (Broadview Heights, Ohio\/St. Edward HS) and senior\/junior Ryan Churella (Northville, Mich.\/Novi HS) — continued the Wolverines momentum with another pair of wins over ranked Hawkeyes. Bertin, the top-ranked 157-pounder in the nation, scored five takedowns — including two in the final period — and accumulated 2:31 in riding to post a 14-8 decision over eighth-ranked Joe Johnston, giving U-M its first advantage of the dual meet.<\/p>\n
With the score at 165 pounds locked up at 2-2 after the first period, Churella, ranked second, took advantage of scramble late in the middle frame to convert a five-point move and take the lead for good against fourth-ranked Mark Perry. The Hawkeye wrestler rode Churella until late in the period when the Wolverine captain used a sideroll to lean back into a Peterson for a reversal and three-point near fall at the buzzer. Perry scored a reversal in the closing seconds of the bout, cutting the final score to 7-5 in Churella’s favor.<\/p>\n
Junior\/sophomore Nick Roy (Wall, N.J.\/Wall HS) earned a 13-6 decision in a dominant performance over Cole Pape at 174 pounds. Roy scored early and often, recording six takedowns, including three in the third period.<\/p>\n
After losing a close decision at 184 pounds, the Wolverines closed out the dual with back-to-back wins at 197 pounds and heavyweight. Senior\/junior Willie Breyer (Oxford, Mich.\/Oxford HS) rallied from an early two-point deficit against the Hawkeyes’ Adam Fellers, scoring a takedown midway through the second period and adding an escape in the third for a 4-2 victory.<\/p>\n
Senior\/junior Greg Wagner (Fort Wayne, Ind.\/Snider HS) capped the U-M victory with an 8-3 decision over eighth-ranked Matt Fields. The Wolverine heavyweight, ranked second, tallied takedowns in the first and third periods and earned 2:06 in riding time. Fields was hit with three stalling calls to add another two points to Wagner’s lead.<\/p>\n
The Wolverines will wrap up the regular-season portion of their schedule next weekend with a pair of conference dual meets. On Friday (Feb. 18), U-M will head north to take on intrastate rival Michigan State at 7 p.m. in East Lansing, Mich., before returning home to host Purdue in its regular-season finale on Sunday (Feb. 20) at 1 p.m.<\/p>\n
#5 Michigan 21, #10 Iowa 11
(Individual rankings from NWCA\/InterMat)<\/p>\n
125 — Charlie Falck (Iowa) major dec. Jim Shutich, 16-6
Iowa, 4-0<\/p>\n
133 — #9 Mario Galanakis (Iowa) dec. #14 Mark Moos, 14-5
Iowa, 8-0<\/p>\n
141 — #5 Josh Churella (U-M) dec. #17 Alex Tsirtsis, 8-4
Iowa, 8-3<\/p>\n
149 — #7 Eric Tannenbaum (U-M) dec. #5 Ty Eustice, 3-2
Iowa, 8-6<\/p>\n
157 — #1 Ryan Bertin (U-M) dec. #8 Joe Johnston, 14-8
U-M, 9-8<\/p>\n
165 — #2 Ryan Churella (U-M) dec. #4 Mark Perry, 7-5
U-M, 12-8<\/p>\n
174 — #14 Nick Roy (U-M) dec. Cole Pape, 13-6
U-M, 15-8<\/p>\n
184 — #9 Paul Bradley (Iowa) dec. Joshua Weitzel, 7-5
U-M, 15-11<\/p>\n
197 — Willie Breyer (U-M) dec. Adam Fellers, 4-2
U-M, 18-11<\/p>\n
Hwt — #3 Greg Wagner (U-M) dec. #8 Matt Fields, 8-3
U-M, 21-11<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Strong Finish Propels Michigan to Victory at No. 10 Iowa IOWA CITY, Iowa — The No. 2-ranked University of Michigan wrestling rallied against No. 10 Iowa to boast a 21-11 road victory on Sunday (Feb. 13) at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Trailing by eight points after the opening two matches, the Wolverines (13-3-1, 5-0-1 Big Ten) posted […]<\/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_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-606","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-9M","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606","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=606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}