Gophers Seek Third Straight National Duals Title in Cedar Falls

#6/1 Minnesota Golden Gophers at 2008 NWCA/Cliff Keen National Duals

Location: Cedar Falls, Iowa
Arena: UNI-Dome
Date: Saturday, Jan. 12 - Sunday, Jan. 13, 2008
Schedule: Minnesota vs. West Virginia, 9 a.m. Saturday; Quarterfinals: 11 a.m. Saturday; Semifinals: 11 a.m. Sunday; Championship: 3 p.m. Sunday
Television: IPTV (Iowa Public Television) will broadcast Sunday’s semifinals on tape delay at 1 p.m. and finals live from the UNI-Dome. The finals replay will be shown on CSTV next week at a yet-to-be-determined time.
Webcast: LiveSportsVideo.com will be providing a free live webcast from up to four different cameras during all of Saturday and Sunday's action. Click here for more information and then click here to view the free webcast this weekend.
Radio: Takedownradio.com will be broadcasting live from the National Duals all day Saturday and Sunday.
Live Web Updates: Gophersports.com will be on hand in and will provide live match-by-match updates, and fans can also find live bracket updates at the University of Northern Iowa's official website. InterMat will also be providing live match-by-match text coverage via their website.

Teams Participating (Preceded by NWCA rank):
#1 Penn State
#2 Iowa
#4 Iowa State
#5 Central Michigan
#6 Minnesota
#7 Michigan
#8 Missouri
#9 Northwestern
#10 Nebraska
#11 Ohio State
#12 Hofstra
#15 Indiana
#16 UT-Chattanooga
#19 Cornell
#24 Northern Iowa
Western Virginia

National Duals Notes to Know:
The sixth-ranked Golden Gopher wrestling team (6-1) will compete in the NWCA/Cliff Keen National Duals this weekend in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Seeded fifth, Minnesota will face West Virginia on Saturday in the first round at 9 a.m. The winner will advance to the quarterfinals at 1 p.m., to face the winner of Ohio State and Central Michigan. The semifinals and championship match will take place on Sunday at the UNI-Dome. Iowa Public Television will broadcast Sunday’s final, with the meet to be televised via tape-delay on a later date on CSTV.

The National Duals will feature 11 of the nation’s top 12 teams and 13 of the top 16. In all, 15 National Duals competitors are ranked in the latest USA Today/NWCA/InterMat poll.

The Golden Gophers have already faced two teams that will be participating in this weekend’s event. Minnesota dropped a tough 18-13 decision against then-No. 2 Iowa State (ranked third in the nation and seeded third this weekend) on Dec. 2 and topped then-No. 7 Nebraska by a score of 25-13 on Dec. 6 at the Sports Pavilion.

The Gophers will be pursuing their third straight National Duals title this weekend and have won their last eight duals at the annual event. Last year, the Gophers defeated top-ranked Missouri, 20-16, in the championship match. Minnesota also finished first in 1998 (an 18-17 championship win over Iowa in Iowa City) and 2006, defeating top-ranked Oklahoma State 21-14 in the final. Minnesota was the runner-up at the 1999 event at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, falling to Oklahoma State 20-17 in the finals. This will be the fifth National Duals event for the Gophers in the state of Iowa.

Eight of Minnesota’s 10 starters are ranked nationally in their respective weight classes as the season restarts after the holiday break. Jayson Ness (No. 3 at 125 pounds), Mack Reiter (No. 5 at 133 pounds), Manny Rivera (No. 4 at 141), Dustin Schlatter (No. 2 at 149 pounds), C.P. Schlatter (No. 6 at 157), Scott Glasser (No. 18 at 165), Gabe Dretsch (No. 10 at 174) and Roger Kish (No. 2 at 184) all rank among the nation’s best.

As the defending national champions, the Gophers entered the 2007-08 season as the top-ranked team in the nation in all four major polls (NWCA, W.I.N. Magazine, Amateur Wrestling News and RevWrestling). A weekend of upsets dropped the Gophers up from No. 3 to No. 6 in the most recent NCWA poll but allowed them to regain the No. 1 spot in W.I.N. Magazine’s rankings.

Sophomore Jayson Ness has a chance to make history this weekend. The undefeated 125-pounder (19-0 this season) has pinned 15 opponents this season and six in a row. The Gopher streak for most consecutive pins is 8 (set by Tim Hartung in ’97) and the single-season pin record is 20, set by current Gopher head assistant coach Marty Morgan in 1989-90.

Tournament-Ready
Even though the Gophers fell from their lofty No. 1 perch atop the national rankings following their early-season loss to Iowa State, the rest of the wrestling world still considers Minnesota the team to beat come championship time this March. J Robinson’s squad received the No. 1 spot in W.I.N. Magazine’s first-ever “Tournament Power Index” (TPI) rankings, which attempt to predict the team standings at the 2008 NCAA Championships. The Gophers, led by their eight ranked individual wrestlers, are projected to finish first with 94 team points.

Scouting the Mountaineers
The Gophers’ first-round opponent at this weekend’s National Duals will be the Mountaineers of West Virginia University, the only team National Duals participant unranked in the latest USA Today/NWCA/InterMat poll. The Mountaineers sport a 3-1 dual meet record thus far in 2007-08 and also finished 12th at the NWCA/Cliff Keen Invitational in Las Vegas last month. WVU also made the same California trip as Minnesota in early January, defeating Cal State-Fullerton and Cal Poly in dual meets on Jan. 2-3 by scores of 27-14 and 24-12, respectively.

Although unranked currently (they were amongst those “receiving votes”), the Mountaineers currently boast three ranked individuals. Seniors Zac Fryling (No. 17 at 157 pounds), Jared Villers (No. 12 at 197 pounds) and Dustin Rogers (No. 13 heavyweight) appear in the top 20 of their respective weight classes.

According to historical records the Gophers have only met up with the Mountaineers twice in Minnesota’s 98-year program history. Both of those meets have come in National Duals competition. The Gophers were 33-3 winners in the quarterfinals at the 1998 National Duals (en route to their first-ever team title) and also emerged a 20-15 victor in the quarterfinals at the 2003 National Duals.

Previous Duals Success in Iowa
The Gophers will be pursuing their third straight National Duals title this weekend and have won their last eight duals at the annual event. Last year, the Gophers defeated top-ranked Missouri, 20-16, in the championship match. Minnesota also finished first in 1998 (an 18-17 championship win over Iowa in Iowa City) and 2006, defeating top-ranked Oklahoma State 21-14 in the final. Minnesota was the runner-up at the 1999 event at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, falling to Oklahoma State 20-17 in the finals. This will be the fifth National Duals event for the Gophers in the state of Iowa.

At Last Year’s National Duals
The Golden Gophers entered last year’s event, also held in Cedar Falls, as the second seed behind then-No. 1 Missouri. The Gophers earned convincing wins over Cornell (32-11) and Central Michigan (30-7) in the early rounds before topping Iowa State 24-11 in the Sunday semifinal. A Cole Konrad pin of Tyler Perry in the final match earned the Gophers their dramatic win over Missouri in the final, vaulting them to the No. 1 ranking in the country and propelling them to the 2007 national championship.

Minnesota All-Time at the Duals
J Robinson’s program sports a 50-8 record all-time at the National Duals in 11 appearances at the tournament. This will mark the 12th straight year the Gophers have been invited to participate in the annual event. They have won the championship five times (2007, ’06, ’02, ’01, 1998).

Ness a Pinning Machine
Sophomore Jayson Ness burst onto the wrestling scene as a redshirt freshman last year, storming to a 40-5 record and taking fifth at the 2007 NCAA Championships. This year, Ness has taken another step forward and established himself as one of the country’s most dominant athletes. The Bloomington, Minn. native is Minnesota’s remaining undefeated starter at 19-0 and has pinned a whopping 15 opponents (79%), already the seventh-highest total in program history. Ness is on pace to shatter the Gophers’ single-season mark of 20, set by current head assistant coach (and fellow Bloomington-Kennedy alumn) Marty Morgan in 1989-90.

Ness Seeks Eight Straight
Not only is Ness on pace to set a new single-season mark for pins (which he can’t do until the Gophers’ Feb. 1 meet with Iowa at the soonest), he could set a different school record even sooner. At the Dec. 29-30 Southern Scuffle in Greensboro, N.C., Ness pinned six straight opponents en route to the 125-pound title, the second-longest consecutive pin streak in Minnesota history. Chad Erickson (11/11/00-11/24/00) and Morgan (11/11/89-11/17/89) also pinned six opponents in a row. Current Iowa State assistant coach (and former two-time national champion) Tim Hartung pinned eight straight opponents from 11/15-12/14 in 1997.

Scuffle Performance Earns Ness Honor
With his dominating performance at the Southern Scuffle, Ness earned the third Big Ten Wrestler of the Week honor of his short career. Ness notched three of his six pins on the weekend in less than two minutes before winning the championship bout over No. 13 Mike Sees of Bloomsburg University with a fall at the 5:58 mark. Currently ranked third nationally at 125 pounds, he earned the award twice last season en route to his first All-American finish at the 2007 NCAA Championships. The sophomore currently has a career record of 59-5, with 30 of those wins coming by way of fall the 11th-highest total in Minnesota history.

Veterans Approaching Marks
Minnesota’s veteran-laden team has been racking up victories this season, and six individuals (Mack Reiter, Manny Rivera, Dustin Schlatter, C.P. Schlatter, Gabe Dretsch and Roger Kish) are steadily moving up the Gophers’ career leaderboard. Below are those individuals’ career records and their overall rank on Minnesota’s all-time career victories list:

20. Roger Kish (2003-pres.) 110-20-0
28. Manuel Rivera (2003-pres.) 98-32-0
29. Mack Reiter (2003-pres.) 97-18-0
- Gabriel Dretsch (2003-pres.) 97-46-0
32. C.P. Schlatter (2003-pres.) 95-28-0
33. Dustin Schlatter (2005-pres.) 92-3-0

Rare Loss For Dustin
Dustin Schlatter’s tight 3-2 loss to Boston University’s Mike Roberts in the Southern Scuffle championship was just the third of the junior’s career and his first-ever to an unranked wrestler. Schlatter’s other two losses came at the hands of then-No. 7 Mark DiSalvo of Central Michigan on 11/26/05 and eventual national champion Gregor Gillespie of Edinboro in the NCAA semifinals last season. Schlatter is still the Gophers’ all-time leader in winning percentage (.968) with a 92-3 career record.

Family Redemption
In the same tournament that saw his younger brother suffer a rare loss, senior C.P. Schlatter earned a form of family redemption in his own championship match at 157 pounds. The elder Schlatter defeated second-ranked Gregor Gillespie of Edinboro 5-2 in the final to pick up his first-ever Southern Scuffle title and avenge his brother’s 3-2 NCAA semifinal loss to Gillespie a year ago.

Ranking Discrepancy
It has a been a crazy season in college wrestling, with three No. 1-ranked teams losing dual meets already and numerous upsets in tournaments around the country. Four different teams (Minnesota, Iowa State, Iowa and now Penn State) have held the top spot in the USA Today/NWCA/InterMat national rankings already. However, the national experts can’t seem to decide on the merit of the defending national championship Gophers Minnesota is ranked first in the latest W.I.N. Magazine dual meet poll and TPI (“Tournament Power Index”) but dropped to sixth overall in the latest NWCA rankings.

Manuel Labor
A senior looking for his first All-American honor this season, Manny Rivera is off to another hot start in 2007. The 141-pounder is 19-1 so far this season and has six pins and four major decisions. Rivera entered the final 30 seconds of his Southern Scuffle championship match with third-ranked Charles Griffin of Hofstra down 3-2, but scored a reversal with just 10 seconds remaining to emerge with a dramatic 5-3 win. Rivera recorded three pins and a tech fall in six matches during the two-day tournament, improving his season record to 19-1 while picking up his second straight Southern Scuffle title.

Gophers Clean Up at Scuffle
The defending national champion Minnesota Golden Gopher wrestling team lived up to its billing at the 2007 Southern Scuffle in Greensboro, N.C. The Gophers ran away with the team title, topping runner-up Edinboro by over 50 points and crowning four individual champions Jayson Ness, Mack Reiter, Manuel Rivera and C.P. Schlatter all finished first in their respective weight classes. It was Minnesota’s second Scuffle title in three years the Gophers also won the event in 2005.

Final Southern Scuffle Team Standings
1. Minnesota 182
2. Edinboro 130.5
3. Hofstra 121
4. Cornell 94
5. Maryland 93.5

Minnesota’s Individual Placewinners
Jayson Ness (1st, 125 pounds)
Mack Reiter (1st, 133 pounds)
Manny Rivera (1st, 141 pounds)
C.P. Schlatter (1st, 157 pounds)
Dustin Schlatter (2nd, 149 pounds)
Tyler Safratowich (5th, 165 pounds)
Gabe Dretsch (5th, 174 pounds)
Yura Malamura (6th, 197 pounds)

Potential Iowa Match-Up Looms
Although the two teams are seeded in opposite brackets at this weekend’s National Duals, no potential match-up excites wrestling fans more than Minnesota and Iowa. The Hawkeyes, ranked first in the nation before losing to then-No. 6 Oklahoma State last weekend, have met the Gophers five times in National Duals competition, with Minnesota winning three times. The two teams are also scheduled to open the Big Ten season Feb. 1 at Williams Arena. That meet will be televised live by the Big Ten Network beginning at 7:30 p.m.

The “border battle” rivalry between the Golden Gophers and Hawkeyes is one of the collegiate wrestling’s fiercest. Iowa leads the all-time series between the programs 62-24-1, but the Gophers have won nine of 15 dual meets between the two since 1998. J Robinson’s squad earned a convincing 29-13 win in Carver-Hawkeye Arena last season en route to their third national championship in seven years. The teams last met in Minneapolis on Jan. 22, 2006, a 25-9 win for the Gophers. 6,695 fans were in attendance at that meet, which was also held in Williams Arena.

Upcoming Events