Husker wrestlers falter in NCAA semifinals
ST. LOUIS — Since the beginning of the season, the Nebraska wrestling team had carried a quiet confidence that often carried it to unprecedented heights.
On Friday night at the Scottrade Center, the air was taken out of the Huskers, as all three of NU’s semifinalists lost heartbreaking matches and the team not only fell out of title contention, but tumbled to eighth place.
“We’re not feeling too well right now,” said sophomore Jordan Burroughs, who lost his 149-pound semifinal. “We didn’t do as well as we thought we could and now we have to work hard tomorrow to get some back.”
Junior Paul Donahoe seemed well on his way back to the championship round until an old nemesis struck again.
Donahoe, the third seed at 125 pounds, was leading Minnesota’s Jayson Ness for much of the second and third periods, but could never put the No. 2 seed away.
A takedown with 27 seconds left in the second period put Donahoe ahead 2-1. But Ness beat the buzzer, escaping with four seconds remaining in the period to tie the match.
Donahoe regained the lead with an escape just 10 seconds into the third period and fought off Ness for the next minute and a half before being warned for stalling with 15 seconds left in the match. Six seconds later, Ness shot in on Donahoe and scored a double-leg takedown that completed a 4-3 victory.
It was the fourth time in five career meetings that Ness has defeated Donahoe, including twice this season.
The Huskers slid even further out of team contention when sophomore Burroughs lost to Iowa’s top-ranked Brent Metcalf.
Burroughs stunned the large contingent of Hawkeye fans with a double-leg takedown barely a minute into the match.
But the aggressive Metcalf escaped 10 seconds later and took Burroughs down with 38 seconds left in the period to take a 3-2 advantage.
Metcalf added an escape and two more takedowns in the second period to increase his lead to 8-3.
Burroughs said Metcalf’s style was a little difficult for him to overcome.
“He’s very tough for me because he’s always coming forward,” Burroughs said. “Our styles kind of clash and that made it hard to overcome.”
Junior Brandon Browne, seeded third at 174, battled Michigan’s Steve Luke to a 1-1 tie through regulation before losing when Luke scored a takedown only 21 seconds into their sudden-victory overtime period.
The news for the Huskers wasn’t all negative, though. In addition to the three semifinalists, Nebraska earned two more All-America honors, as sophomores Stephen Dwyer (165) and Craig Brester (197) won their consolation quarterfinal matches to clinch at least an eighth-place finish. That means the Huskers will have their highest number of All-Americans in one season since the 1995 squad also had five.
“Despite the losses, we’ve done a lot of things this year that Nebraska’s never done before, and that’s exciting,” Burroughs said. “But we have to come back tomorrow and wrestle like we know we can. We don’t want to go home next week and kick ourselves in the butt because we didn’t wrestle hard like we have all year.”
The total of All-Americans nearly hit six.
Leading 6-4 well into the third period, junior Vince Jones appeared to be well on his way to a win in the 184-pound consolations. Then, Oklahoma State’s Jack Jensen picked Jones’ ankle and scored a takedown with only 36 seconds left in the match to forge a 6-6 tie. Jensen rode out the remainder of the period and finished with exactly one minute of riding time to earn a bonus point and eliminate Jones.
It was just more of the disappointing finishes that haunted the Huskers all day.
In the quarterfinals, Dwyer gained a takedown against Cornell’s Mack Lewnes with 34 seconds left in the match to go ahead 4-2. Lewnes, however, scored a reversal with 11 seconds left to force the match to overtime.
After a scoreless sudden-victory period, Lewnes notched another reversal in the first of the two 30-second tie-breaker periods and nearly rode out Dwyer the rest of the way. Dwyer almost scored a reversal in the waning seconds of his match, but was awarded only a one-point escape as time expired to give Lewnes a 6-5 victory.
At 184, Jones was tied 1-1 with Missouri’s sixth-seeded Raymond Jordan into the final minute of the match, but Jordan scored a takedown and rode out the remainder of the period to earn a 3-1 win.
Top-seeded Joshua Glenn of American won his 42nd straight match by scoring three near-falls in a dominant 10-5 win against Brester at 197. Glenn pinned Brester in the 2007 NCAA quarterfinals.
Briefly
-- In the consolation bracket, Husker Kenny Jordan defaulted his early morning match and was eliminated from the tournament. Jon May lost 7-2 against Kent State’s 6-foot-6 heavyweight Jermail Porter, the No. 9 seed, in the final match of May’s college career. May is the only senior on the Husker roster this season.
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