University of Minnesota Athletics
University of Minnesota
South Dakota St.
Gophers Surge Past SDSU in Home Opener
11/19/2016 12:00:00 AM | Wrestling
Heading to 174 pounds during Saturday night's home opener, six bouts into their dual against No. 20 South Dakota State and trailing by 14 points, a Gopher victory looked improbable. Even after winning three straight matches, the home team needed five points from the final contest to level the dual, and six to win. That's when the improbable comeback took an an unbelievable turn.
No. 5 Michael Kroells at minimum needed a technical fall over Alex Macki to give the Gophers a shot to win. As he worked to turn Macki to his back repeatedly during the match, he eventually drew a warning for stalling against Macki. Then he drew a second warning. Then a third. Then a fourth. Late in the match, with Kroells leading 10-0, a fifth warning on Macki for inactivity disqualified him from the match, earning the Gophers six points and completing the come-from-behind victory in the unlikeliest fashion.
"I was just thinking, score as many points as I could," said Kroells about his mentality heading into the dual-clinching bout. "When I knew I won, it was a great feeling. I haven't had that here at home, where I got a win that decided the dual. It was a pretty great feeling."
"Kroells was pumped up. He was looking for the big win. We've had some great [heavyweights] here and Kroells is doing a great job filling those big shoes," said head coach Brandon Eggum.
Kroells victory capped a run of four consecutive wins from Minnesota's upper-weights to erase the early deficit. That streak began with a ranked victory for No. 17 Nick Waznek, who scored the lone takedown of his match with No. 15 David Kocer to pull the 3-2 upset. At 184 pounds, redshirt freshman Bobby Steveson won his career dual debut with a convincing 8-3 decision over Martin Mueller. No. 2 Brett Pfarr followed with a 7-0 decision over No. 5 Nate Rotert. In the past two seasons, Pfarr is 3-0 against Rotert by a combined margin of 34-0.
The need for that late run came after the Jackrabbits got the better of the Gophers in five of the night's first six matches. Minnesota's bright spot in that tough start came at 141 pounds, where Gannon Volk looked strong in a 6-2 decision over fellow redshirt freshman Henry Pohlmeyer in Volk's first-ever dual match. Volk and Steveson, victors in their opening appearances before the Sports Pavilion crowd, were two of four Gophers who made their career dual debuts on Saturday night. At 133 pounds, true freshman Mitch McKee fell to No. 7 Seth Gross and at 149, James Berg lost to Alex Kocer.
Going into the intermission trailing, Eggum still had confidence the team could pull out a win on the strength of its biggest wrestlers.
"It was tough at halftime. Going into the locker room, guys were quiet," said Eggum, but "we knew the upper-weights were capable of doing it and they did a good job. That's a tough thing to do when momentum is going the other way, but they stopped it and got it going in our direction."
Full match-by-match results are listed below.
Minnesota, now 1-0 on the young season, will stay at home over the Thanksgiving holiday to prepare for its next match, a home dual against top-ranked Oklahoma State next Sunday, Nov. 28, at 1 p.m. Central. Tickets for that match are currently available at MyGopherSports.com.
GopherSports.com is your home for all Gopher Wrestling news throughout the 2016-17. Whether you're looking for a dual recap, match previews, features on the wrestlers you're seeing on the mat each week or team stats, we will have it all for you right here. Be sure to follow Gopher Wrestling on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for the latest updates.
Match-by-Match Results
125: Ben Gillette (SDSU) dec Skyler Petry (Minn), 8-1 | SDSU 3 -- Minn - 0
133: No. 7 Seth Gross (SDSU) maj dec Mitch McKee (Minn). 12-3 | SDSU 7 -- Minn 0
141: Gannon Volk (Minn) dec Henry Pohlmeyer (SDSU), 6-2 | SDSU 7 -- Minn 3
149: Alex Kocer (SDSU) maj dec James Berg (Minn), 10-2 | SDSU 11 -- Minn 3
157: Colin Holler (SDSU) dec No. 18 Jake Short (Minn), 6-4 | SDSU 14 -- Minn 3
165: Luke Zilverberg (SDSU) dec Brandon Kingsley (Minn), 3-1 | SDSU 17 -- Minn 3
174: No. 17 Nick Wanzek (Minn) dec No. 15 David Kocer (SDSU), 3-2 | SDSU 17 -- Minn 6
184: Bobby Steveson (Minn) dec Martin Mueller (SDSU), 8-3 | SDSU 17 -- Minn 9
197: No. 2 Brett Pfarr (Minn) dec No. 5 Nate Rotert (SDSU), 7-0 | SDSU 17 -- Minn 12
285: No. 5 Michael Kroells (Minn) disqualified Alex Macki (SDSU) | SDSU 17 -- Minn 18
Players Mentioned
