The Ohio State men’s wrestling team, pictured above, defeated the Indiana Hoosiers 27-13 Sunday in Bloomington, Indiana. Credit: Courtesy of Ohio State Athletics
Ohio State, fresh off a loss to No. 7 Minnesota, needed to get back in the win column.
And it did so Sunday afternoon.
In their second top-25 matchup in three days, the No. 4 Buckeyes (13-2, 5-2 Big Ten) took down No. 25 Indiana (7-4, 3-4 Big Ten) 27-13 at Wilkinson Hall in Bloomington, Indiana.
It didn’t look pretty for Ohio State to open the match. The Hoosiers struck first at 197 pounds, as No. 21 Gabe Sollars defeated No. 18 Seth Shumate in a 10-6 decision to give Indiana an early 3-0 lead.
But the Buckeyes got on the board soon thereafter. In the 285 pound weight class, Ohio State’s Nick Feldman bounced back from his Friday decision loss and beat Hoosiers’ No. 18 Jacob Bullock in a narrow 4-2 decision to even the score.
Then, No. 18 Brendan McCrone — who’s coming off an upset victory Friday against Minnesota’s Cooper Flynn —gave up a late takedown against No. 20 Jacob Moran and fell 3-2 which put the Hoosiers back on top.
At 133 pounds, Buckeyes’ No. 10 Nic Bouzakis, who returned from injury after being out against Minnesota Friday, had an early lead. But later in the third period, Bouzakis was taken down and lost 6-3 to Angelo Rini in an upset loss.
With Ohio State down six, All-American No. 1 Jesse Mendez righted the ship and dominated Lucas Peters 19-3 in a period two tech fall to bring the Buckeyes within one at the break.
Ohio State then took the lead at 149, with No. 8 Dylan D’Emilio narrowly avoiding a monstrous upset against Indiana’s Joey Buttler to secure a 5-3 decision victory. The win gave the Buckeyes their first lead of the duel.
Ohio State’s Brandon Cannon, who suffered a critical major decision loss Friday, bounced back in a big way Sunday as he used two third-period takedowns to earn a 15-3 tech fall win over Ryan Garvick and extended the Buckeyes’ lead to seven.
But unlike Cannon, fellow freshman Brock Herman could not respond from his crucial Friday loss as he fell 15-2 to No. 19 Tyler Lillard, which pulled the Hoosiers within three with two bouts left.
Despite the loss at the 165-pound weight class, the Ohio State All-American No. 5 Carson Kharchla clobbered Roman Rogotzke, the brother of Buckeye sophomore Ryder Rogotzke, 19-4 in a first-period tech fall, sealing a team victory for the Buckeyes with a 21-13 advantage with one bout left.
No. 19 Ryder Rogotzke put the exclamation mark on the dual at 184 pounds and pinned DJ Washington in 54 seconds to bring the final score to 27-13.
Ohio State will return home to the Covelli Center on Friday to face off against No. 1 Penn State. The duel will take place at 7 p.m.
