By Mike Finn, W.I.N. Editor

Missouri’s Ben Askren, ranked No. 1 at 174 pounds, thought about moving up one weight during the NWCA / Cliff Keen National Duals in Cedar Falls, Iowa. In fact, he thought about it well before the Tigers faced Minnesota in the finals, where Askren defeated the Gophers’ Roger Kish, ranked No. 2 at 184, by a 5-4 margin, Jan. 14.

            Nearly 24 hours earlier, the Missouri senior and 2006 Hodge Trophy winner said he thought about moving up to 184 pounds when the Tigers faced Northwestern, Jan. 13, in a quarterfinal match, where Askren settled for a 14-6 victory over unranked Nick Hayes.

            “I kind of wanted to bump up to wrestle Herbert and think I was kind of a chicken for not doing it,” said the unbeaten Askren, whose string of 17 straight falls was stopped by Hayes. “I was standing back there talking to him and said, ‘I should bump up and wrestler you.’

            “Then I thought, ‘I don’t have to and the Hodge (Trophy) is on the line if I bump up. If something happens and I get caught on my back or something, the Hodge will be gone.”

            Askren defeated Herbert, 14-2, in last year’s NCAA championship match at 174 pounds en route to capturing the Hodge Trophy, presented to the nation’s top wrestler by W.I.N. and the Dan Gable International Institute and Museum.

            Herbert moved up to 184 pounds this year and is ranked No. 1. Even though the Wildcats finished eighth in the team competition, the Northwestern junior won all five of his matches with one pin, one technical fall and three major decisions.

            Askren also wanted to drop down and wrestle Oklahoma State’s Johny Hendricks, the defending NCAA champ and No. 1-ranked wrestler at 165 pounds, during the NWCA All-Star Classic, which was held in November in Dallas, Texas.

            “I tried to make it happen but the NWCA didn’t want it to happen,” said Askren. “I certified a day after the invitations came out and I called them, but they said it was too late. I told them to find another 165 and 174 pounder and put a bonus match out there and everyone one is happy.”

Is it talent or something else?

            Two years ago, Iowa State signed the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class when the Cyclones inked the likes of Nick Fanthorpe, Nick Gallick, Mitch Mueller, Cyler Sanderson, Jake Varner and David Zabriskie.

            Halfway through their first season of competing for the Cyclones, five of the six redshirt freshmen are ranked — Fanthorpe, 12th at 125; Gallick 15th at 133; Mueller 16th at 141; Sanderson, 16th at 149; Varner, 5th at 184 — and heavyweight Zabriskie knocked off Oklahoma State’s 17th-ranked Jared Rosholt to help the Cyclones beat OSU in the Duals’ third-place match. Not only did ISU beat the Cowboys for the first time since 2000 but the 25-9 margin was Iowa State’s biggest winning margin over their conference rivals since 1980.

            So are these Cyclones, whose combined record is 103-39, ahead of schedule?

            “I don’t think you are ever ahead of schedule, but the guys are working hard and coming together,” said first-year head coach Cael Sanderson. “We have a lot of work to do but it’s fun to win.”

            Sanderson added the freshmen’s success isn’t simply due to the prep resumes they brought to Iowa State: Fanthorpe was a two-time Illinois state champ, Gallick was a four-time Arizona state champ and Asics All-American; Mueller and Sanderson won Junior National championships; Varner was a two-time California state champ and was named the 2005 Junior Schalles Award winner; and Zabriskie was a New Jersey state champ.

            “It’s just a good group of kids,” Sanderson said. “They work hard and want to do well. They have great attitudes and they wrestle as a team. They are all supportive of each other.”

            Sanderson also received a strong effort at the Duals from 197-pound Kurt Backes, who went 4-0 in Cedar Falls with one pin (in 36 seconds over Hofstra All-American Chris Weidman), one technical fall, one major and one decision.

            “Kurt is having fun,” said Sanderson. “He’s real talented. He’s just got to keep having a good time and wrestle. He’s got to keep things in perspective and he’s doing that. He is tough in every position and when you do that you have a chance of winning every match you are in. He’s stepping up big time for us.”

            This is the same Backes, who moved up from 184 pounds and was defeated by Iowa’s unranked Dan Erekson in early December.

            “I’ve got to treat every match the same,” said Backes, who followed his Iowa loss with a second-place finish at the Midlands, Dec. 30. “At the Midlands and in the finals match, I didn’t wrestle the way I should have.  I was a little too hesitant and at Iowa I wasn’t feeling great. I just have to make every match the same thing.”

Iowa looking for team leader

            Iowa finished fifth at the National Duals, par for the course considering the Hawkeyes were seeded No. 5 and lost only to Oklahoma State, 22-13, in the quarterfinals. And while first-year head coach Tom Brands was not happy about his team’s finish, he’s not in panic mode, but stressed he needed more out of Perry.

            “I am not going to panic,” said Brands, whose team came back to beat Nebraska, Northwestern and Hofstra. “The Oklahoma State meet was not a fun one to sit through …and when a guy walks off the mat and throws his shoes in the garbage can you know there is some underlying problems where we need to get the athlete to be the athlete and the coach to run the team.”

            Brands was especially upset with Perry, a two-time All-American, who — after losing 9-1 to OSU’s top-ranked Johny Hendricks in the quarterfinal — walked away from the Iowa bench and eventually threw his head gear and shoes in two garbage cans located on the floor of the UNI-Dome.

            Brands is looking for leadership from one of his athletes.

            “I want an athlete to be a catalyst,” Brands said. “I don’t want the coaches to be the catalyst. We need an athlete to be a catalyst; to step up and lead.”

            Making this more difficult is that Brands has several talented wrestlers in his room who are ineligible to compete this season, including six-time Junior National champion Brent Metcalf, who transferred from Virginia Tech to Iowa with Brands last summer.

            “A guy like Brent Metcalf can’t do it,” he said. “He’s not even eligible to travel with us.  He can be an example in the room all day long but he’s not going to be the guy. It’s going to be someone traveling with us.”

            Perry said he was letting the pressure of the team’s performance, falling behind 15-0 to OSU, get to him.

            “I just need to go back to when I was a freshman and start worrying about myself and not my teammates,” said Perry, who finished second nationally in 2005 before claiming third at 174 pounds last spring. “That’s going to be hard for me to do. It doesn’t help when I’m not wrestling well because the first five are not wrestling well.”

Wrestling for seeds

            Central Michigan has just five ranked wrestlers and yet the Chippewas continue to find success in the National Duals. One year after finishing fourth in 2006, CMU claimed seventh place when they defeated Northwestern, 22-11, and only fell into that placement match when the Chippewas lost by criteria to Hofstra in a consolation semifinal.

            “We were more concerned with individual match-ups this weekend and improving our position in seedings for the Nationals,” said CMU coach Tom Borrelli. “We had some guys do that, including (heavyweight) Bubba Gritter who beat (Northwestern’s third-ranked) Dustin Fox.”

            Gritter, a junior, moved up to No. 3  in the rankings after the tournament, where he went 4-1; losing only to top-ranked Cole Konrad.

            Brandon Sinnott, whose twin brother Christian wrestles at 184 pounds for CMU, was 5-0 on the weekend at 174 pounds. That included a 5-3 victory over Minnesota’s Gabe Dretsch.

            “We feel that there is a gap between the top four programs and the rest of the teams,” Borrelli said. “We feel that we are in that next ten and we’re trying to push to be one of those four or five teams; Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma State, Iowa State and Iowa maybe.”

            This is Borrelli’s first season in four years that he is simply a coach. In the previous three years, he coached his son, Jason, who graduated last year.

            “It’s been a little easier on me; not that I didn’t enjoy it,” Borrelli said. “When my son graduated, he said, ‘You are going to start enjoying this more.’ I think he’s right because there’s not the same kind of nervousness.”

Pride takes a hit

            Hofstra, from Hempstead, N.Y., came to Cedar Falls with a lot of expectations considering the Pride were seeded No. 3. Instead, Tom Shifflet’s team went 3-2 and finished sixth; beating Nebraska, Northern Iowa and Central Michigan, but losing to Iowa State in the quarterfinals and to Iowa in the fifth-place bout.

            Hofstra did have a wrestler go unbeaten in 157-pound James Strouse, whose biggest victory was against Iowa State’s Trent Paulson, 3-1. The senior also blanked Iowa’s Ryan Morningstar, 8-0.

No shows, except for M.A.S.H.

            Many of the nationally-ranked wrestlers in Div. I did not wrestle because of injuries. The following is a list of ranked wrestlers who did not compete:

            • Cornell’s Troy Nickerson (No. 2 at 125) and Jerry Rinaldi (No. 3 at 197);

            • Oklahoma’s Matt Storniolo (No. 2 at 149);

            • Cal-Davis’ Derek Moore (No. 2 at 141) and Ken Cook (No. 7 at 174);

            • Penn’s Matt Herrington (No. 2 at 184); Teammate Matt Valenti (No. 2 at 133 and defending national champ) who wrestled in the first two duals but not in the 27-13 consolation loss to Central Michigan.