Tigers upset by Central Michigan
Published Feb. 14, 2009
Friday night was supposed to be a fairy tale for the Missouri wrestling team in the annual Beauty and the Beast match featuring the MU wrestling and gymnastics teams. Central Michigan begged to differ.
The Chippewas came into the Hearnes Center and stole the dance with the beauty, leaving Missouri stunned in front of 4,147 witnesses.
Central Michigan won six of the first seven matches, and Missouri was never able to fight back, as the Chippewa’s pulled off a 22-14 upset.
“We just got out toughed,” coach Brian Smith said. “I haven’t had that happen with this program in a long time. We had a team come in who was just physically tougher. We let them take the fight to us, and I’m really embarrassed as a coach. I’ll take part of the blame, I guess I didn’t have them prepared.”
Central Michigan’s Scottie Sentes, ranked No. 9 in the nation, got the ball rolling for Central Michigan by pinning Missouri freshman Troy Dolan in the third period. Even though Sentes was winning for the entire match, the win was huge for Central Michigan because of the three extra bonus points for the pin.
Following a Missouri loss at 133 lbs., senior Marcus Hoehn, ranked No. 10 in the nation, was upset by Central Michigan backup Tony D’Alie in overtime. Hoehn would have won the match, but gave up a takedown with two seconds remaining in the third period, and then gave up another immediate takedown in overtime.
Senior Michael Chandler was the lone bright spot for Missouri, winning 16-0 to finally put Missouri on the board and erupt the Hearnes Center crowd.
“We just didn’t perform as good as we could have,” Chandler said. “We’re not really worried, we know we can easily come out Sunday and knock off Iowa State.”
After Chandler’s match, junior Nick Marable was the latest Missouri wrestler to be upset. After falling down by one point in the second period, Marable chose to go down in the third, but was unable to escape, losing to No. 12 Trevor Stewart. The loss was Marable’s first since Dec. 30.
“Marable got ridden the whole third period, and everybody knows how to game plan him,” Smith said. “He’s just got to show up and wrestle harder.”
Senior Raymond Jordan was then upset in his match, losing to No. 9 Mike Miller. Going into the third period with a one-point lead, Jordan gave up an escape, and was later called for stalling, to lose 2-1.
“You can’t go into matches afraid to lose, you’ve got to go out there to win,” Smith said. “We had seniors giving matches away, and you can’t afford to do that.”
Missouri won the final three bouts of the night, but the way up to the tower to reclaim their princess was way too steep for the Missouri wrestlers.
“You can point to a particular match, but everything happens before the match,” junior Max Askren said. “I don’t know if it was the week coming in, if it was the upcoming meet on Sunday, or what it was, but we just didn’t show up. Hopefully everyone goes home tonight and realizes that they don’t want another night like this. We have the ability to wrestle. I just don’t know why we didn’t tonight.”
