Wrestling team in third place after first day

By Luke Plansky
Daily Staff Writer
AUBURN HILLS, Mi. – The NCAA Tournament was slipping away from the Iowa State wrestling team.
Three losses in the first round, three straight losses to start the second, and No. 1 seed Trent Paulson was tied in the third period with an unseeded wrestler from Drexel.
Meanwhile, top-ranked Minnesota hadn’t yet lost a match.
Paulson won, and the second-ranked Cyclones caught their feet with three straight wins, but after a “good day” by coach Cael Sanderson’s standards the team finished the first day in third place.
“You always want to win more,” Sanderson said. “We lost a couple close matches, but we won a couple matches, so we’re happy where we’re at. We just have to come back [Friday] ready to roll.”
Trent and brother Travis Paulson (165), fellow senior Kurt Backes (197) and standout freshman Jake Varner (184) also won two matches at the Palace of Auburn Hills Thursday.
Five wrestlers are still alive in the consolation bracket. Senior Grant Turner (174) exited the tournament after two losses.
The Golden Gophers won 17 of 19 matches on the day and have seven wrestlers in the championship bracket.
“They’ve got a great team and were seeing that here. It’s really no surprise,” Sanderson said. “Our focus is on ourselves and getting our best performance as a team. We still got a lot of work to do, you know, these next two days, we gotta pick up speed here.”
Fourth-seeded Travis Paulson looked dominant, picking up a pin and major decision. After a first-round pin, Trent Paulson got an unexpected test from Ryan Hluschak but tossed the Dragon to his back.
Backes scored a takedown nine seconds into overtime against Oklahoma’s Joel Flaggert to advance. He lost two close matches to the two-time All-American this season.
Varner shut out both of his opponents in dominating decisions.
The formula for a successful tournament for Iowa State included success from the three captains – the Paulson brothers and Backes – and contributions from the six freshman starters.
Varner said the contributions of teammates that have lost is as vital as success from the four quarterfinalists.
“The way we see it is you take care of your own business, the team will follow,” Backes said. “I just wanna clean my house, the team will take care of itself.”
Several matches slipped away from the Cyclones, but the team had its share of successes.
After falling behind 5-0, freshman Nick Gallick (133) pinned third-seeded Adam Frey in the first period of his first-round match, but lost to Penn State’s Jake Strayer, 4-2, in the second round.
Mitch Mueller (141) held onto a 4-1 lead in a 4-3 win against Central Michigan’s Eric Kruger, but was pinned by top-seeded Ryan Lang of Northwestern.
Cyler Sanderson (149) tied Harvard’s sixth-seeded J.P. O’Connor, 2-2, during regulation but gave up a takedown in sudden victory in the second round.
Freshmen Nick Fanthorpe (125) and David Zabriskie (HWT) each lost in the first round but won consolation matches.