Well, not many people saw that coming.
#2 Iowa went into Ann Arbor on Friday night to face #12 Michigan -- and promptly got ambushed by a Wolverine team that rode early success to an emphatic 24-11 victory over the Hawkeyes. It wasn't hard to see a Michigan win in this dual, given how closely-matched the teams looked on paper, but few expected the Wolverines to blow out the Hawkeyes.
Michigan won the first five matches of the dual and opened up a 16-0 lead heading to intermission. Iowa won three of five matches after the break, but that just made the final margin slightly less one-sided; the dual result was all but locked after Michigan's red-hot start.
The loss was Iowa's first in a dual meet to a team other than Penn State since a 27-12 defeat at #2 Oklahoma State in 2019. It was Iowa's first loss in a Big Ten dual meet to a team other than Penn State since a 19-17 loss to #7 Michigan in 2018. And it was Iowa's first loss to Michigan in Ann Arbor in 20 years, since a 20-16 defeat in 2004.
With the loss, Iowa drops to 10-1 overall and 5-1 in Big Ten competition. Michigan improves to 6-3 overall and 4-2 in Big Ten action.
How did the start of the dual meet go so disastrously for Iowa? Michigan took care of business at the weights it was favored at (133 and 149) -- and also picked up upset wins at every other lower weight as well. The headline upset was at 141, where #19 Sergio Lumley, a true freshman, took down #1 Real Woods via a 14-2 major decision.
After a scoreless first period, Lumley got a reversal on Woods and then turned Woods to pick up four near fall points. The Michigan crowd erupted and suddenly Lumley had a 6-0 lead. Woods got a pair of escapes to cut the lead to 6-2 in the third period, but he had little success getting to Lumley's legs all match and that didn't change late in the match.
Instead, Woods gave up a penalty point and then got cradled by Lumley and taken to his back in the final seconds of the match. Woods avoided the pin, but the takedwon and four additional near fall points produced the jaw-dropping final score of 14-2.
Lemley is not a scrub -- he was a 4-time state champion in high school and a Top 20 overall recruit -- but still: he's a true freshman and Woods is a defending Big Ten champion and returning NCAA finalist. The match mostly seemed like a a bad night for Woods that snowballed into a disaster in the third period, but there have been other matches where he's had trouble scoring from neutral as well, so that's something to watch in the future. Woods is a hammer on top and extremely difficult to chase down when he gets a lead -- but he's much more vulnerable in other match situations.
The other two notable upsets in the first half of the dual were at 125 and 157, which were almost carbon copy matches. 1-1 through regulation, with none of the four wrestlers involved able to finish a shot (though 125 at least featured some good scrambles and impressive defense from other #5 Drake Ayala and #12 Michael DeAugustino). Both matches were still 1-1 after scoreless sudden victory periods. And both matches featured the Michigan wrestler winning the tiebreaker period.
The only minor difference came in how they prevailed in tiebreakers -- at 125, DeAugustino got an escape from under Ayala, then managed to ride Ayala for the entire 30-second period (while narrowly avoiding a potential reversal), while at 157, #12 Will Lewan upset #2 Jared Franek by bettering Franek's 4-second escape with a 2-second (!) escape of his own in the tiebreaker period.
The Franek result was especially disappointing -- he only needed to keep Lewan down for five seconds and he wasn't able to do that -- but neither outcome was especially surprising. Franek has wrestled a host of tight, low-scoring matches all season, often decided by a single takedown. If you wrestle like that on a regular basis, you're going to get burned at some point, which is what happened here (as well as a few weeks ago against Minnesota's Michael Blockhus).
Ayala doesn't wrestle as many close matches as Franek, but he's also had trouble finishing attacks against some of the top guys at 125 this season, especially tall, lanky opponents -- like DeAugustino (or Purdue's Matt Ramos). Ayala's activity level in the match was good and he had some strong attacks -- he just wasn't able to finish any of them. In the future he'll need to try to finish more quickly when he gets to the legs on DeAugustino (or Ramos) and deny them the opportunity to scramble or set up a stalemate.
Franek too had a higher activity level than Lewan, though not quite enough to warrant enough stalling calls against Lewan to net Franek a point. Ultimately, Franek needs to finish attacks and score takedowns to win matches and doing that might require working on some additional attacks, or at least new ways to disguise his favorite attacks.
At 133 and 149, Iowa wrestlers lost to much-higher ranked opponents who picked up very workmanlike decision wins (5-2 for #4 Dylan Ragusin at 133, 5-1 for #6 Austin Gomez at 149). The most notable thing about those matches was Victor Voinovich getting the nod for Iowa at 149 lbs; he kept Gomez at bay for a little while (0-0 after the first period), but didn't do much to threaten Gomez, either.
The second half of the dual went better for Iowa, though it was too little, too late to impact the dual result by that point. Iowa needed to at least split the opening matches, not get swept by the Wolverines.
#6 Michael Caliendo recorded Iowa's first takedowns of the night (2) and also picked up Iowa's first win of the dual with an 8-4 win over freshman Beau Mantanona. It wasn't a very flashy win, but it did stop the slide Iowa was on in the dual.
Aiden Riggins and #11 Zach Glazier got Iowa's only other wins of the dual at 184 and 197; Riggins came out on top in a back-and-forth 6-5 match with Joseph Walker that featured three reversals (two for Walker and one for Riggins). The third period reversal for Riggins provided the winning points, although his first period takedown was the real difference in the match.
Glazier turned his match at 197 into a takedown clinic, recording six takedowns in an utterly dominant 20-4 technical fall win over Bobby Striggow. Glazier got his first takedown seconds into the match and never let up from there. It was yet another impressive performance from Glazier, albeit against much weaker competition.
The most notable match of the back half of the dual was at 174 lbs, where #3 Shane Griffith dominated #8 Patrick Kennedy on his way to an 12-1 major decision. After a scoreless first period, Griffith rode Kennedy for the entire second period and turned him for four near fall points. In the third period he added a pair of takedowns to lock up the major decision win.
If last week's win over Edmond Ruth suggested that Kennedy might be able to hang with top guys at 174, this week's loss certainly indicated that there's still a pretty big gap between Kennedy and the very best at 174.
#6 Lucas Davison closed out the dual with a no-fuss 11-2 major decision win over #28 Bradley Hill, using three takedowns, an escape, and a riding time point to get a comfortable win. Hill has looked good at times this year, but he is also far off from competing with the top guys at his weight.
Iowa doesn't have much time to sit and stew with this result -- #1 Penn State is coming to Iowa City next week. If Iowa puts forth an effort like this against the Nittany Lions, the results are likely to be even uglier than tonight's 24-11 final score. In addition to #1 Penn State, Iowa also has a dual meet with #3 Oklahoma State coming up in a few weeks; Iowa got embarrassed by the Wolverines in this dual, but there are still opportunities for Iowa to show better against elite opponents.
Was this a a bad night with a few close losses that snowballed into a disaster early on? Or was this a sign of significant underlying weaknesses in this Iowa team? The next few weeks may help answer those questions.
#12 Michigan 24, #2 Iowa 11
125: #12 Michael DeAugustino (M) DEC (2-1 TB) #5 Drake Ayala (I)
133: #4 Dylan Ragusin (M) DEC (5-2) #18 Cullan Schriever (I)
141: #19 Sergio Lemley (M) MAJ DEC (14-2) #1 Real Woods (I)
149: #6 Austin Gomez (M) DEC (5-1) Victor Voinovich (I)
157: #12 Will Lewan (M) DEC (2*-2 TB) #2 Jared Franek (I)
165: #6 Michael Caliendo (I) DEC (8-4) Beau Mantanona (M)
174: #3 Shane Griffith (M) MAJ DEC (12-1) #8 Patrick Kennedy (I)
184: Aiden Riggins (I) DEC (6-5) Joseph Walker (M)
197: #11 Zach Glazier (I) TECH FALL (20-4) Bobby Striggow (M)
285: #6 Lucas Davison (M) MAJ DEC (11-2) #28 Bradley Hill (I)
NEXT: Iowa heads back home to face #1 Penn State (8-0) on Friday, February 9 (8 PM CT, BTN).
