Missouri wrestling gains hard-earned victory

The win was a welcomed turnaround from Friday's upset.

By Nick Forrester

Published Feb. 16, 2009

Right from the start, Missouri's wrestling team made it clear Sunday's dual against No. 2 Iowa State would be different from the rest of the season, from Friday night's match in which MU was manhandled and from what everyone thought would happen.

Everyone thought wrong.

After an Iowa State forfeit at 133 pounds to give Missouri six points, senior Marcus Hoehn came up with a huge victory for the Tigers. Wrestling against No. 3 Nick Gallick, Hoehn struck first by taking down Gallick. After Gallick tied it up in the third period, the match was sent to overtime. But Gallick was warned for stalling in the third period, which would later come back to haunt him. In sudden-death overtime, Hoehn persistently attacked, until the referee signaled Gallick for stalling again to give Hoehn one point and the victory.

"We were the aggressor in that match," coach Brian Smith said. "Marcus kept attacking and attacking, should've scored a couple of times and didn't, but just kept attacking and we knew eventually that they had to call."

The victory was Hoehn's first victory against a top 10 opponent this season.

One of the most highly anticipated matches was in the 157-pound weight class, between senior Michael Chandler, ranked No. 8, and Iowa State's Cyler Sanderson, ranked No. 7. With just 10 seconds remaining in the first period, Chandler took Sanderson down. In the second period, Chandler was able to hang on to win 4-0.

"It was a lot of fun," Chandler said. "I wanted to convince the nation, everybody, that Missouri wrestling works so hard, and that everybody on this team wants to win a national title. We wrestled with a lot of intensity and a lot of emotion."

Junior Nick Marable then came up with a big win of his own, this one by defeating No. 7 Jon Reader in the 165-pound weight class. Tied with only 25 seconds remaining in the match, Marable used his explosiveness to take Reader down to win the match 3-2.

"Reader doesn't do too much against me," Marable said. "Against other people he wrestles hard, but against me, he doesn't shoot because I guess he's scared that I'm going to score off of his shots."

After Marable's win, the 2,515 in attendance at the Hearnes Center started to believe a Missouri upset was actually possible. Senior Raymond Jordan sealed the deal in the next match for the Tigers, by defeating Iowa State junior Duke Burk 6-1.

The upset against the No. 2 Cyclones was a complete bounce back for Missouri, who were upset by No. 9 Central Michigan on Friday night.

"I don't care if they win or if they lose, as long as they wrestle hard," Smith said. "I told the guys yesterday that I know the type of pride that they have in themselves and this program, that I believe in them and that they'll go out and wrestle, and they did. I think a big part of it is that they believed in themselves."