In its final regular season meet, the MSU wrestling team captured a win Sunday afternoon, defeating Indiana, 19-14, at Jenison Field House.
With just its second win of the season and first in the Big Ten, the Spartans (2-12, 1-7), took six individual matches, with three coming from seniors in their final home meet as Spartans.
"It means a lot, actually," senior Arsen Alexsanyan said. "It puts everyone in really good spirit before going to the Big Tens - and winning the last one at home, especially for our seniors, it's really big, really exciting."
Alexsanyan celebrated Senior Day along with Mike Keenan, Nate Mesyn and Anton Hall.
"It's always a little sad when you see the seniors step out for their last dual," head coach Tom Minkel said. "You have a big investment, usually five or more years with the kids, so it's always sad because you know it's the last time you'll get to work with them on your home turf."
Mesyn kicked off the event with a win in the 184-pound match, defeating Indiana's Andy Rios, 5-3, and Keenan stole a close, 4-3, heavyweight victory over Josh Buuck, putting MSU up 6-3.
"Everybody just went out there and stayed aggressive and we won," Mesyn said. "We really are up there with a lot of teams - most of the time when we lost, we didn't lose by much."
One of the most anticipated bouts of the day came in the 141-pound match with redshirt freshman No. 9 Andy Simmons facing No. 7 Coyte Cooper.
The match was scoreless for the first five minutes until Simmons grabbed six points for the shutout and his fifth straight victory.
"We're trying to make progress from week to week," Minkel said. "We've had a very, very tough schedule, and sometimes we take a step forward, and then we take another step backward.
"I think today we were able to put some things together and win some matches that might have gotten away from us before."
Sophomore Darren McKnight took the next match for the Spartans, putting MSU back on top, 12-11.
Then, in a major decision, Alexsanyan downed Matt Cooper 9-0 in an exciting match that insinuated a Spartans' victory.
"Everyone's in a good mood now," Alexsanyan said. "It'll give us a good two weeks of hard training before we go to Big Ten (Championships)."
The Spartans head to the conference championship March 6 and 7 in Columbus, Ohio, followed by the NCAA Championships on March 18-20 in St. Louis. And despite their unattractive record, Minkel remains positive about postseason success.
"I feel like we're making progress - I know we're making progress," he said. "We'll continue to work hard the next two weeks and hopefully we can have some good things happen at the Big Ten."
