Wrestlers Back Home To Take On West Virginia

Last weekend the wrestlers put on their best performance of the season, going 4-1 at the Virginia Duals. They were wrestling so well, in fact, that Lock Haven checked out of their hotel and went home in the middle of the night rather than face Iowa State in the 5th place match on Saturday morning. Which is a fairly impressive accomplishment. For the first time all season, the Cyclone wrestlers looked like the team many of us expected them to be before the season started. So now the question becomes - was that a one time performance? Or is that the baseline for what we can expect out of this group? We’ll find out on Sunday as the West Virginia Mountaineers come to Hilton.

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Where: Hilton Coliseum; Ames, IA

When: 2:00PM Sunday, January 21st

TV/Stream: Mediacom/Cyclones.TV

As usual, I’ll also be tweeting results at @GrappleCy

Projected Lineups

Rankings from the 1/18/18 Coaches Panel

Key Matches

157

When the first coaches panel came out on Thursday only three Cyclones were listed. And Chase Straw was not one of them. But comparing the rankings to the remaining schedule showed there there were three dual opponents left that give Straw a clear path for getting his name added to the panel that comes out at the end of the regular season.

• 30. Jonce Blaylock (Oklahoma St.)
• 32. Zach Moore (West Virginia)
• 33. Justin Thomas (Oklahoma)

A 2-1 record against those three would probably get Straw ranked in the 30-33 range, which is better than nothing but not enough for him to be in position to earn the conference an allocation for NCAAs. But if he can go 3-0 against that group, starting with a win over Moore on Sunday, Straw probably can get himself up in to the upper twenties and with that reach one of the NCAA qualification legs.

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165

A 3-5 wrestler vs an 8-10 one isn’t exactly the NCAA finals. But Breitenbach finally picked up his first dual win of the season last weekend and could use a few more wins to build up his confidence. And in addition to the benefits of a confidence boost, getting a some wins in matches like this also improves his seeding for the Big XII Championships, making it easier for him to steal a ticket to Cleveland at a weight where the conference should have a large number of allocations.

184/HWT

These are two weights where an ISU wrestler with a winning record will take on a West Virginia wrestler with a losing one. If ISU is wrestling like they did last weekend the team shouldn’t need bonus at these weights to win the dual. But that could change depending on how the middle weight matches go. Regardless of whether or not the bonus points are needed, it would be great if Pestano and Harrington could take advantage of weaker opponents to pile on the points to put on a show for the crowd at Hilton.

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Prediction

I’m a lot less pessimistic about the team after last weekend’s results so I see Iowa State winning 6 matches to pick up a 20-14 type win over the Mountaineers.

Next Up

The Cyclones will be back on the road next weekend to take on Oklahoma on Friday, January 26th and then Oklahoma State on Sunday, January 28th.