They celebrated Senior Day at Maclellan Gym Sunday afternoon as the Chattanooga Mocs wrestled their final regular-season match, but there wasn’t much celebrating on the home side after that as the Indiana Hoosiers headed home after posting an impressive 32-3 victory.
Indiana improves to 8-5 overall while Chattanooga is now 9-11.
Chattanooga head coach Kyle Ruschell has preached all along that he wanted his kids to be the aggressor and to force the action, pressuring the opponent into costly mistakes, but it was the team in red that served as the aggressor and they are the ones who applied most of the pressure.
“That’s a tough pill to swallow, but they won all the close ones,” Ruschell said afterwards.
“We didn’t lay down, but they pushed us around a little bit and put us on the edge of the mat. I know that people will see that score and think we got whipped, but if we make a few adjustments, those scores could be flipped and we’d have a different turnout. It really was a much closer match than the score would indicate.
“We wanted to see just where we stood against a quality opponent before our conference tournament and that’s why we schedule teams like this, but we should be fine as we have two weeks to get ready,” the coach nodded.
Indiana coach Angel Escobedo liked what he saw from his kids, the win no doubt making that six and a half hour bus ride back to Bloomington seem a lot shorter.
“I thought we were the aggressor today, but I would have liked to have more takedowns,” he said when it was over.
“The matches at 133 and 174 were important for us and we won both against ranked kids. That’s huge for us as that will help our tournament seeding.
“But we’re in a good spot right now and I felt like we did a nice job on top accumulating riding time. That’s always important and can be the difference between winning and losing in a close match.
“But overall, I’m happy with the way we performed,” he concluded with a smile.
Indiana now has a 9-2 advantage in the series that began in 1981, but the Mocs had won the previous two meetings, the first by a 26-10 final in 2020 and by a 21-15 last year in Bloomington.
Jacob Moran got six points the easy way with a forfeit to start the match and give Indiana the early lead at 6-0.
They followed with six straight decisions to build a 24-0 lead before Matthew Waddell snapped the streak with a 5-2 win at 184.
A regular decision by Nick Wilhelm at 197 and a technical fall by Jacob Bullock at 285 gave the Hoosiers wins in nine of the 10 matches.
Henry Porter, ranked 30th at 133 pounds, won the first big match for the Hoosiers with an 8-3 decision over Chattanooga’s Brayden Palmer, who is currently ranked 13th.
Then in another match featuring ranked wrestlers, No. 14 D.J. Washington handed 11th-ranked Rocky Jordan his second loss with a 4-1 decision that clinched the win for the Hoosiers.
THOSE SENIORS HONORED included Jake Boyd, Thomas Sell, Franco Valdes, Weston Wichman, Carial Tarter, Waddell and Jordan.
INDIANA 32, CHATTANOOGA 3
125 – Jacob Moran (Indiana) won by forfeit;
133 – Henry Porter (Indiana) dec. Brayden Palmer, 8-3;
141 – Cayden Rooks (Indiana) dec. Dayne Dalrymple, 3-1;
149 – Graham Rooks (Indiana) dec. Noah Castillo, 6-4;
157 – Derek Gilcher (Indiana) dec. Lincoln Heck, 4-1;
165 – Nick South (Indiana) dec. Jackson Hurst, 4-1;
174 – D.J. Washington (Indiana) dec. Rocky Jordan, 4-1;
184 – Matthew Waddell (Chattanooga) dec. Drayton Harris, 5-2;
197 – Nick Wilhelm (Indiana) dec. Jake Boyd, 2-1;
285 – Jacob Bullock (Indiana) won by technical fall over Nick Benton, 5:11.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)