By Craig Sesker, Special to W.I.N.

Nebraska sophomore Paul Donahoe scored a grand total of three points in his first three career meetings with Oklahoma’s senior Sam Hazewinkel.

But when the stakes were highest and all 17,780 fans were focused on the elevated mat, March 17, at The Palace in Auburn Hills, Mich, Donahoe broke through and won the biggest match of his life.

The No. 6 seed Donahoe shot in on a single-leg attack and finished for a match-ending takedown with 39 seconds left in overtime to pull out a dramatic 3-1 overtime win over the top-ranked Hazewinkel to capture the 125-pound title at the NCAA Championships. Donahoe won the title just 33 miles from his hometown of Davison, Mich.

“This is like a dream,” Donahoe said. “I’m just so happy. I just want to thank all my coaches, all my high school teammates, my college teammates, my workout partners and my family. I’m just thankful to everyone who believed in me. This is just awesome.”

Donahoe capped a 34-5 season and beat Hazewinkel just two weeks after falling to him 12-3 in the finals of the Big 12 Championships. Hazewinkel entered the match 24-0. Hazewinkel finished third, third, third and second at the championships in his career.

“This is just awesome for Paul. It’s a tremendous accomplishment,” NU coach Mark Manning said. “Paul’s had trouble scoring on Sam and just couldn’t finish takedowns against him in the past. But here, he was so tough under pressure. He worked really hard and he got a lot stronger. He earned this.”

Donahoe did not place in the 2006 championships as a freshman, losing 5-0 to Hazewink-el in the NCAA quarterfinals. Donahoe lost 3-0 to Hazewinkel in a 2006 dual and entered the NCAA final 0-3 against the four-time All-American.

The addition to the Husker coaching staff of past NCAA and World champion Sammie Henson has paid dividends for Donahoe.

“At Big 12s, Hazewinkel came out and scored five quick points on us and we were behind the eight ball right away,” Henson said. “We wanted to make sure we kept it as close as we could early and then hope our conditioning would help us as the match wore on. The key for him was to wrestle a complete match. Paul never let up, and that’s why he’s a national champion.”

Donahoe worked tirelessly in the Husker wrestling room to develop an attack to knock off Hazewinkel, who has placed second the past two years in Greco-Roman at the U.S. World Team Trials.

“We watched tape of the match last year in the quarterfinals where Paul kept getting Hazewinkel’s leg but couldn’t quite finish,” Henson said. “We worked really hard on how to finish the single. We didn’t take as many shots this time, but we wanted to make sure the shots counted when we did take them. This is a real credit to Paul. He had a game plan and stuck to it.”

Donahoe beat the No. 3, 2 and 1 seeds in his final three matches. He outlasted NCAA runner-up and No. 2 seed Troy Nickerson of Cornell, 2-1, in double-overtime in the semifinals. He beat No. 3 seed Tanner Gardner of Stanford, 8-3, in the quarterfinals.

Donahoe became the ninth Husker to win a national title. With two more seasons left, Donahoe has a chance to become the first multiple national champion in NU history.

“I’ve been preaching all year long that we’ve never had a multiple national champion at Nebraska,” Manning said. “We’ve had great wrestlers at Nebraska like Jim and Bill Scherr, Tolly Thompson and Brad Vering, but none have won multiple titles.

“I know we have guys on our team right now like Paul who are capable of doing that.”

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