Indiana University Athletics
Wrestling Set for Matchup with EIU
1/12/2007 12:00:00 AM | Wrestling
Jan. 12, 2007
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SETTING THE SCENE
Indiana will travel to Charleston, Ill., for a dual meet with the Eastern Illinois Panthers on Sunday, Jan. 14. This will mark the fifth year in a row and the eighth in the past nine that the Hoosiers and Panthers have met head-to-head, with IU taking every matchup. Overall, Indiana has a 16-6-0 record against EIU, and has won the last 12 meetings, including a 36-3 victory a year ago in Bloomington. This is IU's final event before Big Ten duals begin on Friday, Jan. 19, with a dual against Purdue. IU has won at least eight matchups in each of its duals this season.
LAST TIME OUT
Led by No. 12 Angel Escobedo, the Indiana wrestling team finished fifth with 96.0 points at the 44th Midlands Championships, hosted by Northwestern University, while four other Hoosier grapplers earned places at the event. No. 7 Iowa State won the Championships with 154.5 points, while No. 5 Iowa finished second with 107 and No. 8 Northwestern took third at 102. The 16th-ranked Hoosiers finished just a half-point behind No. 10 Central Michigan, which finished fourth.
Along with Escobedo's victory at 125, junior Max Dean took fourth place at 165. Sophomore Andrae Hernandez (133 pounds) and redshirt freshman Matt Coughlin (149) each garnered fifth-place finishes in their weight classes, while junior Marc Bennett (184) was seventh at 184.
Escobedo won his first three matches at 125 pounds, including a pair of falls and a major decision. Escobedo, the highest-ranked wrestler remaining in the tourney, then topped seventh seed Pat Castillo of Northern Illinois with a 3-1 decision to face Nick Fanthorpe of Iowa State in the finals. The redshirt freshman won the championship match with a 3-1 decision. The Griffith, Ind., native improved to 22-2 on the year with a team-leading 10 pins. He became IU's first Midlands champ since Pat DeGain in 2004 with the victory.
Hernandez and Dean picked up their second straight places at the event, as they finished fifth and sixth, respectively, at the 2005 Midlands. The Hoosiers finished eighth as a team a year ago.
MEDIA INFORMATION
Indiana Athletic Media Relations Staff Assistant Matt Brady is the primary media relations contact for the wrestling team. He can be reached at his office (812-856-0215), via cell phone (413-222-2788) or e-mail (mlbrady@indiana.edu).
SCOUTING THE PANTHERS
Eastern Illinois holds an 0-4 season record entering Sunday's dual, including losses to Big Ten foes Northwestern and Purdue. EIU went 0-3 at the Purdue Duals on Jan. 6, with Cleveland State and Appalachian State taking down the Panthers at the event. Prior to that, Eastern finished 27th at Midlands with 11.5 points.
Greg Perz (184) and Kenny Robertson (174) are the top two wrestlers for EIU, as Perz brings a 17-4 record into the weekend and a 4-0 mark in dual meets. Robertson is 7-4 on the year and is 3-1 in duals, with his dual loss coming to Northwestern's Nick Hayes.
The Hoosiers topped Appalachian State, 38-9, at the Hoosier Duals on Nov. 25.
EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS
Redshirt freshman Angel Escobedo has posted an impressive debut season for the Hoosiers in 2006-07, carding a 22-2 record and a team-leading 10 pins on the season. With his victory at Midlands, he became the first Hoosier to take the title since Pat DeGain (HWT) in 2004 and the first freshman to win at Midlands since Mark Perry of Iowa and Jake Herbert of Northwestern won in 2004.
It was the first title for Escobedo as an attached wrestler, though the redshirt freshman has notched top-three finishes at both the Michigan State Open (11/12) and the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational (12/2) to vault him into the ranks of the national elite.
Escobedo won his first three matches at 125 pounds, including a pair of falls and a major decision. In the opening round, Escobedo earned his ninth pin of the season, dropping Anthony Ciccarelli, his likely opponent on Sunday, in 3:32. He also posted a 10-2 major decision over Ryan Riggs of Cleveland State and a fall of Lindenwood's Josh Sampo at the 5:00 mark. He then topped seventh seed Pat Castillo of Northern Illinois and Nick Fanthorpe of Iowa State by identical 3-1 decisions.
Escobedo has gained national recognition for his performance this year, and is now ranked in the top 12 in all of the five polls, with his highest rating of sixth coming from Wrestling International Newsmagazine. The NWCA/ Intermat poll has Escobedo at No. 12. This season, Escobedo has 10 pins and is just one away from finding himself in the top 10 in the IU record book for a single season. His only two losses have come to the wrestlers currently ranked eighth (Lock Haven's Obenson Blanc) and 11th (Nebraska's Paul Donahoe) in the nation, by a combined 4-1 score.
KNOCKING THEM OFF
Through six events in the 2006-07 wrestling season, Indiana University grapplers are already making waves on the national scene. Members of the Hoosier team have totaled 19 victories over opponents ranked in the top 20 of their weight classes on the year.
Redshirt freshman Matt Coughlin (149) has been leading the charge, as he already has six victories over top-20 competition this season and is ranked as high as seventh in the country. In Las Vegas (12/2), Coughlin toppled three wrestlers in the top 20, posting victories over No. 4 Tyler Turner (Wisconsin), No. 5 Jordan Leen (Cornell) and No. 11 Jermain Thompson (Eastern Michigan). Coughlin added another victory over Thompson on Dec. 17, and has also topped No. 19 Jason Johnstone of Ohio State and No. 20 Troy Tirapelli of Illinois.
Marc Bennett sits just behind Coughlin on the list, besting four ranked opponents with his 20-2 record. Kurt Kinser has three wins over top-20 wrestlers this season while competing unattached, while Max Dean and Brandon Becker have posted two more wins apiece.
DEAN OF STUDENTS
Junior Max Dean earned a fourth-place finish at Midlands, rebounding from a second-round loss to advance all the way to the third-place bout in the wrestleback. Dean won his first five matches in the wrestleback to advance to a third-place matchup with No. 6 Nick Baima of Northern Iowa, but Baima took a 10-3 decision in the bout.
Dean, who placed third at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational (12/2) and third at the Michigan State Open (11/12), has a 21-6 record on the year and a career mark of 72-37. He has posted fifth-place finishes at the Big Ten Championship in each of his first two years, and is a two-time NWCA Scholar-Athlete and a two-time Academic All-Big Ten choice.
ANDRAE THE GIANT
In an up-and-down year for the returning NCAA qualifier, sophomore Andrae Hernandez (133) posted his second straight strong performance for IU at Midlands, taking a fifth-place finish with his only two losses to the top two seeds at 133. Hernandez won his first three matches, including a major decision and a technical fall, to earn a spot in the semifinals with top-ranked Nick Simmons of Michigan State, which Simmons took 2-0. After falling to second seed Robbie Preston in the wrestleback, Hernandez took a 3-0 decision over Northwestern's Eric Metzler to earn fifth. That matched his finish at Midlands last year, when the Hoosiers finished eighth at the event.
At the F.I.T.E Duals (12/18), the sophomore went 3-0 and took 15 dual points. Hernandez pinned Larry George of SIU-Edwardsville, scored an 18-0 technical fall of Harper's Mike Ryan, then posted a major decision over EMU's Chris Jenkins. He now sits at 13-6 with four technical falls, five major decisions and four pins in 2006-07, a year after qualifying for the NCAA Championships and posting a 28-11 record.
HOOSIERS INK THREE RECRUITS
The Indiana wrestling team has signed three grapplers to National Letters of Intent, Head Coach Duane Goldman announced on Friday, Dec. 8. The Hoosiers will add Joe Fagiano (Chicago, Ill./St. Patrick), Matt Ortega (Rio Rancho, N.M./Rio Rancho) and Reece Freeman (Bloomington, Ind./South) for the fall of 2007.
"All three of these individuals are great wrestlers and exceptional students," Goldman said. "They are dedicated, hard-working student-athletes with high goals - exactly the kind of people who we want representing Indiana."
Fagiano was the 2006 Illinois state champion at 215 pounds in 2006 and will be gunning for his second straight championship in 2007. He was named the 2006 East Suburban Catholic Conference Most Outstanding Wrestler after winning the conference title, and was is currently ranked 10th in the nation at 215 by Wrestling International Newsmagazine.
Ortega is a three-time New Mexico state champion and will seek a school-record fourth title in as many years in 2007. He helped Rio Rancho to a fourth-place finish at the Reno Tournament of Champions in December 2005, finishing seventh at 119 pounds in the event. Ortega won his first championship at 103 pounds and his second at 112 before moving up to 119 for his junior campaign. Ortega is currently the 12th-ranked wrestler in the 125-pound class by W.I.N.
Freeman was a teammate of current Hoosier freshmen Paul Young and Kurt Kinser at Bloomington South, helping the team to two sectional, regional and semi-state championships in his first three years. Freeman is the top-ranked wrestler in the state at 119 after going 46-2 and placing fifth in Indiana last year. He entered his senior campaign with a career record of 134-10 over three weight classes.
STRONG BEGINNINGS
IU's incoming freshman class in 2006-07 has put together a solid season so far, both from wrestlers who have participated in dual meet competition and those that have only competed unattached. Indiana's freshmen have compiled an aggregate 96-60 record so far this season.
Three Hoosiers have stood out enough to crack the starting lineup on a regular basis so far this year, led by 141-pounder Nick Walpole. Walpole has gone 15-7 on the season with a 5-1 record in dual meets for IU. The Indianapolis native leads the squad with six major decisions on the year and is tied for second with six pins.
Another standout has been Nathan Everhart at 197 pounds. The Tinley Park, Ill., native went 3-2 at Midlands, posting a pin and a technical fall in the wrestleback. His only two losses in Evanston came to wrestlers ranked in the nation's top 20. Everhart, a pre-dentistry major, is also a standout in the classroom, and has already been named IU Scholar Athlete of the Week this year. Everhart has a 16-7 mark on the season with three technical falls, two major decisions and two pins on the season.
Nick Avery competed as an attached wrestler for the first time at the F.I.T.E. Duals (12/17), and the Foxboro, Mass., native went 2-1 at the competition. Avery is 8-6 for the Hoosiers overall on the season.
True freshman and Bloomington South product Kurt Kinser has turned some heads this season. Kinser has competed unattached for the Hoosiers at 149 pounds and has already knocked off three grapplers ranked in the top 20, including a 13-2 major decision over No. 7 John Cox at the Penn State Open on Dec. 9. Kinser's former high school teammate, Paul Young, has also put together a 12-5 record on the year, including a fourth-place finish at the MSU Open (11/12). Both Kinser and Young are expected to redshirt this season.
