Central Michigan University
Michigan
Chippewas Wrestlers Fall to Michigan
11/25/2014 12:00:00 AM | Wrestling
Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. - The Central Michigan wrestling team could muster just one victory Tuesday in dropping a 30-3 non-conference dual to 16th-ranked Michigan at McGuirk Arena.
Junior Zach Horan was CMU's lone winner as he defeated George Fisher, 5-2, at 141 pounds. It marked the second consecutive dual that the Horan provided the Chippewas' with their lone victory.
Last Thursday, CMU (1-4) fell to 15th-ranked Iowa State by the same 30-3 score. Ten days ago, the Chippewas went 1-2 in the Eastern Michigan Duals, losing to 14th-ranked Edinboro and to 17th-ranked Northwestern.
"We trained really hard up to this last 10 days," CMU coach Tom Borrelli said. "We had five dual meets in the span of a 10-day period against pretty good competition so we couldn't go real hard the last 10 days. We kind of tapered leading up to this.
"We have to get back to work now. We have to work really, really hard for the next 10 days and try to peek our conditioning again. Hopefully our guys understand that."
The Chippewas won't wrestle again until Dec. 14 when they travel to Buffalo for their first Mid-American Conference dual. Six days later, Northern Illinois visits for another league dual.
"Our next two dual meets, we'll see where we are," Borrelli said. "Hopefully our guys have some pride, we need to have more pride than that. As a coach you'd like to think that you can foster some of that, but really that's got to come from your athletes."
The Chippewas faced a Michigan (2-1) lineup loaded with ranked wrestlers. Seven of the 10 Wolverines who took to the mat on Tuesday are ranked, and five of those are in the top 10 in their respective weight classes. Horan, 12th at 141, is the lone active CMU wrestler who is ranked.
"You have to have a spark and we just haven't had that spark other than Zach the last two or three matches," Borrelli said. "Hopefully he can be that guy. But you've got to have some other guys step up too. You can't win a dual meet with one guy."
In several matches, the Chippewas were competitive early on, but faltered later in the match. It was a similar pattern against Iowa State, and therein lies a lesson, Borrelli said.
"It looks like at a lot of weight classes right now we can only wrestle for about 4 minutes, 4 ½ minutes, then we're spent and we get dominated the last 2 ½ minutes of the match," he said. "We've got to get better in that situation. We train pretty hard, but I don't think they understand what tired is yet.
"We've competed against this competition level for the last 15 years and we've competed well against this level. And we're not there right now. We've got to figure out a way to get them to that point."
Michigan 30, Central Michigan 3
125: Conor Youtsey (UM) dec. Brent Fleetwood (CMU), 4-0
133: Rossi Bruno (UM) dec. Tyler Keselring (CMU), 10-3
141: Zach Horan (CMU) dec. George Fisher (UM), 5-2
149: Alec Pantaleo (UM) dec. Colin Heffernan (CMU), 10-5
157: Brian Murphy (UM) dec. Malcolm Martin (CMU), 8-4
165: Taylor Massa (UM) dec. Jordan Wohlfert (CMU), 8-1
174: Davonte Mahomes (UM) dec. Jordan Ellingwood (CMU), 8-1
184: Domenic Abounader (UM) dec. Jackson Lewis (CMU), 9-3
197: Max Huntley (UM) tech. fall Austin Severn (CMU), 24-9
285: Adam Coon (UM) tech. fall Newton Smerchek (CMU), 24-9
Players Mentioned
