Hawkeye Wrestling Travels to Rutgers, Maryland: WATCH, STREAM, LISTEN

Right side of the country, hello. Tom Brands and company are making the yearly trip back east to wrestle Rutgers Friday and Maryland Sunday. Those duals start at 7 and 12p, respectively.

You can watch on BTN2Go and Flo, listen on Hawkeye All Access or iHeartRadio. KXIC 800 for the terrestrial crowd.

Iowa at Rutgers

You probably realized this on your own, but there’s no reason for Iowa to lose either of these duals. The Scarlet Knights haven’t had the fortune of downing the Hawkeyes in the program’s previous — and only — three meetings.

I’m interested to see what Justin Stickley does against the nation’s No. 2 125-pounder, Nick Suriano. Yes it’s still early, but it’d be nice see Stickley stand up to this task so we’re not left debating if Spencer Lee should pull the redshirts.

Oh by the way, Either of these contests would be a good time to see Alex Marinelli make his Iowa debut. Neither team has a ranked 165-pounder so hopefully he’s let off the leash. Oh look, he’s featured from this week’s media avail?

That may be looking too much into it, but I think it’s a fair conclusion to draw. I’m grasping at any and all hope, because we’ve waited A MILLION YEARS for this Marinelli debut, and at this point we’re willing it into existence!

Iowa at Maryland

The highlight here is at heavyweight, where Sam Stoll will take on Youssif Hemida and a clever chant from Robin Ficker, assuming he can get away from his Montgomery County Executive campaign for an evening.

Otherwise, Maryland has a ranked guy in Ryan Diehl at 141, where we may or may not see Vince Turk. I think Carter Happel gets at least one match this weekend, why not throw him into the fire?

We’ll have a wrap up of both these meets when they’re completed. Here’s to hoping for a weekend of explosive wrestling — looking at you, Mr. Sorensen, Mr. Kemerer — and a few Hawkeye debuts.

Let’s rock and roll.