FINISH HIM: Iowa Wrestling Demolishes Northwestern, 49-0

Programming note: BTN is re-airing the dual on the network itself Saturday morning at 11am (right now).

brentmetcalf: Think I'll rip Mason's heart out and show it to him on Valentine's Day. About as sentimental as I get.

Apparently he decided to do it to his jNWU opponent, too, and get half his teammates to join in the fun.

If you were a boy growing up in the early '90s and played video games, there's about a 98% chance that you played Mortal Kombat.  Remember that friend you had who owned the game and spent all his time playing it, until he got so good that it was no longer any fun to play him, because he'd get FLAWLESS VICTORIES every single damn time?  (Or maybe you were that friend, in which case you were a little shitheel.)  Anyway, that was the Iowa wrestling team versus just Northwestern tonight: they did basically whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and all Northwestern could do was sit there and take it. 

Granted, Iowa is ranked #1 in the nation and very, very good, while Northwestern is not ranked (they're 5-11-1 now) and not very good this year; it's a clear rebuilding year for them.  But still: Utah Valley put up a considerably tougher fight last week.  In fact, only three teams have been defeated by more lopsided margins by Iowa this season: Cornell (57-0, the Iowa one, not the really good one), Iowa Lakes (52-0), and Southern Illinois-Edwardsville (51-0).  And last time I checked, none of those teams were in the Big Ten, where everyone is supposed to be at least passable in wrestling.  Hell, Coe kept things closer when they took on Iowa (39-3).  If not for a handful of takedowns against Grant Gambrall and Luke Lofthouse, just Northwestern would have recorded no takedowns for the entire meet and this really could have been a FLAWLESS VICTORY. 

There's no point in any sort of elaborate weight-by-weight breakdown for this meet; Iowa fucking dominated.  They recorded pins in five matches and bonus points in all but three matches.  "Manhandle" isn't a strong enough word for what Iowa did to Northwestern here.  We threw around the term "bitchmade" frequently when referring to the Iowa defense this past football season, but even they would have to doff their caps in appreciation for this effort; this was a true bitchmaking.  Iowa improved to 20-0 on the season, 5-0 in Big Ten competition, and recorded their 58th consecutive dual meet victory (and both their 24th consecutive home meet victory and their 24th consecutive Big Ten dual meet victory). They've also now won 32 individual matches in a row.

125: #4 Matt McDonough (rsFR, 26-0) PIN (4:32) Levi Mele (FR, 8-9) (IOWA 6-0)
133: #3 Dan Dennis (SR, 14-1) maj dec. (12-3) Eric Metzler (SR, 11-8) (IOWA 10-0)
141: #7 Montell Marion (SO, 17-3) wins via forfeit (IOWA 16-0)
149: #1 Brent Metcalf (SR, 26-0) PIN (2:20) #14 Andrew Nadhir (JR, 19-7) (IOWA 22-0)
157: Aaron Janssen (JR, 11-4) dec. (6-1) Kevin Bialka (FR, 9-14) (IOWA 25-0)
165: #4 Ryan Morningstar (SR, 21-3) PIN (4:48) Robert Kellogg (SO, 8-15) (IOWA 31-0)
174: #2 Jay Borschel (SR, 25-0) PIN (2:27) Brian Roddy (JR, 8-7) (IOWA 37-0)
184: Grant Gambrall (rsFR, ??) dec. (9-3) Aaron Jones (JR, 9-13) (IOWA 40-0)
197: Luke Lofthouse (JR, 18-11) dec. (4-3) Josh Schoen (SO, 12-11) (IOWA 43-0)
Hwt: #10 Dan Erekson (SR, 5-0) PIN (3:52) Marcus Shrewsbury (FR, 4-11) (IOWA 49-0)

I expressed doubt about Iowa picking up a third-straight shutout in my preview earlier today; I clearly underestimated just how terrible just Northwestern is this year. 

Keddy likely sat out for precautionary reasons to get him some rest and to help him heal a few nagging injuries. 

NEXT UP: #5 Minnesota at Williams Arena at 6pm CST on Sunday.  BTN has live coverage.