With the final meet of the regular season against in-state rival No. 4 Michigan, Michigan State wrestling celebrated Senior Night for six graduating seniors.
All six seniors were a part of Head Coach Roger Chandler’s first two recruiting classes.
Michigan dominates Michigan State wrestling in regular season finale
Redshirt junior and No. 10 Cameron Caffey wrestles the No. 1 graduate student Myles Amine on Feb. 19. Caffey lost the match 11-6, dropping his record to 5-2.
“They helped set the trend for change within the program that MSU wants to be nationally relevant on (a) year in and out basis," Chandler said. "They have left their mark with Spartan Wrestling and have left it in a better place than when they started."
The match is the final one of the regular season before Big Ten Championships begin on March 6 and 7.
After defeating Purdue’s Devin Schroder last week, Rayvon Foley started strong out the gate with a 7-2 win by decision over Michigan’s redshirt junior Jack Medley.
“Rayvon, he started (with) kind of a slow start to the season," Chandler said. "He’s slowly coming back to the form that he was at when he was an All-American."
For the 133-pound weight class, MSU’s redshirt freshman Jordan Hamdan lost to Michigan’s Dylan Ragusin in a fall only 1:42 in.
Unranked Matt Santos and Michigan’s Drew Mattin battled it out in the third matchup of the night. Santos fell short to Mattin in a 4-0 decision.
'He would want me to give my best effort'
In the most emotional match of the night, redshirt freshman Peyton Omania defeated Michigan’s No. 7 Kanen Storr in a 15-8 major decision. Omania’s high school coach, Mark Halvorson, unexpectedly passed away this past week, but that didn’t stop Omania from giving it his all on the mat.
“And I just knew that he would want me to give my best effort, he would want me to wrestle,” Omania said in a post-meet interview. “It would have been too easy to just go home, what he wanted me to do was to be here tonight and supporting my team and giving my effort for my team. And that’s what I did."
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“We’re always going to have to keep our eyes on him," Chandler said as he admired Omania’s performance. "Because he’s just special, and I think you saw tonight why it was so special. There’s no doubt that coach Halvorson was sitting in his corner tonight."
With his final regular-season matchup after a stellar first season, freshman Chase Saldate faced off against Michigan’s No. 10 Will Lewan. After being tied well into the second period, Lewan took a 4-2 advantage over Saldate going into the final period. Saldate ultimately fell short to Lewan in a 7-2 decision, Michigan led overall 12-6.
In the final home meet of his career, redshirt senior No. 22 ranked Jake Tucker fell short in a 4-3 decision to Michigan’s No. 14 Cameron Amine.
With another senior matchup in the 174-pound weight class, Michigan redshirt senior Logan Massa held a 16-6 advantage over MSU redshirt senior Drew Hughes going into the final round. Massa eventually added another mark to the win column for Michigan in a 16-6 decision.
In his now sixth win of the season, MSU redshirt sophomore Layne Malczewski led in a 6-2 decision victory over Michigan freshman Jaden Bullock.
In his toughest matchup of the season thus far against Michigan’s No. 1 Myles Amine, MSU’s No. 10 Cameron Caffey fell short with an 11-6 decision.
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For the final senior matchup of the night, MSU’s redshirt senior Christian Rebottaro dueled against Michigan’s No. 2 Mason Parris. With a fall after 2:19, Rebottaro was defeated by Parris.
After a 28-9 overall loss to No. 4 Michigan, Chandler noted small adjustments that need to be made going into Big Ten Championships by two weekends from now.
“I just told our guys in the locker room that we can fix some of the technical things as we go into the Big Ten Championships," Chandler said. "But as long as we have the effort … good things can happen in the Big Ten with some small technical changes."
