The wrestling team is practicing to reach its goals and fix its mistakes, but still fell to rival No. 12 Michigan, 26-6, on Friday and to No. 15 Illinois, 29-6, on Sunday.
Although the Spartans (5-8 overall, 0-5 Big Ten) lost to the Wolverines, an upset came when ninth-ranked senior heavyweight Michael McClure beat U-M freshman Adam Coon, ranked No. 1 nationally.
Junior Nick McDiarmid, who wrestles in the 197-pound category, also won against U-M junior Chris Heald.
Both McClure and McDiarmid came out victorious against Illinois.
“I talked to the team after and we only won two out of the 10 matchups, but we wrestled hard. We’re not far away from winning all these matches,” head coach Tom Minkel said.
The one who had a tough match Sunday was McDiarmid, though. By the end of the second period, he said he “coudn’t see much.”
“I got poked in the eye pretty good, it was a very aggressive match,” McDiarmid said. “It was a hands-in-the-face match, kind of dirty.”
He said the referee did not get involved as much as he should have because his opponent, Illinois sophomore Jeff Koepke, poked him in the eye a few times.
“I try keeping calm, and the coach tells me to keep wrestling at your pace,” he said.
Senior Robert Nash, who is in the 165-pound category, had a very physical match against Illinois’ No. 12-ranked junior Jackson Morse. According to McDiarmid, Nash is a “very intense guy that goes very hard,” but that it’s “fun to watch.”
Nash lost to Morse 6-2.
Although many of the Spartans lost, Minkel said the matches were even and they have to focus on takedowns going their way.
“It’s a process, but we’re a resilient team,” Minkel said. “They put in the hard work and have the qualities to be a pretty good team.”
Minkel said he was particularly excited about McClure’s win against Coon.
“(McClure) is pretty tough. He understands he has to be aggressive in every match,” Minkel said.
McClure also was “feeling pretty good” about the win and said that going into the match, he felt he could beat Coon.
“He’s an undefeated true freshman, so his crowd was rooting for him pretty hard,” McClure said. “Getting the win will help getting a good seed in the NCAA rankings.”
Working toward more wins, Minkel said the team will prepare for No. 1 Penn State by watching film of the Spartans’ previous matches.
“I’ll go through the video and look at errors and things they’ve done well. They have Mondays off, then Tuesdays and Wednesdays, they work on fixing these errors,” Minkel said.
MSU will face Penn State at 7 p.m. on Friday.
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