IU drops 4th straight meet

The first seven times the IU wrestling team faced Penn State, it came out on the losing end. Number eight didn't turn out to be the lucky number for the No. 15-ranked Hoosiers, who dropped their fourth straight match Friday with a 27-8 loss to the No. 8-ranked Nittany Lions.\nOn a night when the Hoosiers (11-4, 2-4 Big Ten) honored seniors Joe Dubuque, Nick Spatola and Brady Richardson, as well as graduating juniors Matt Cooper and Isaac Knable for senior night, IU grapplers dropped eight of their 10 matchups. The Hoosiers struggled in close matches all night.\n"At some point it's not a question of giving a good effort," IU coach Duane Goldman said about close matches, "it's just a question of getting it done."\nDuring the Hoosiers' current losing streak, IU has been falling in close matches in every single dual meet.\n"Losing the overtimes, losing the one pointers, losing by riding time, at some point that needs to stop," Goldman said. "The guys need to take it personally and make a change."\nEven through the losing streak, Dubuque has been able to keep his undefeated season going. On Friday, the defending national champion won his 25th straight match, scoring an 18-3 technical fall win against Tim Hass to cut the Nittany Lions lead to 13-5. But it wasn't enough to spark a Hoosier comeback. While the IU captain said he would like to see his teammates be successful, there is only so much he can do to help them.\n"Guys just got to basically say to themselves whether they want to win or not," Dubuque said. "Right now you can't force guys to win."\nAfter Dubuque's match, No. 18 Hoosier freshman Andrae Hernandez faced off against No. 9 Jake Strayer. Going into the third period, Strayer had a 1-0 lead, and Hernandez started the period trying to score an escape point to even up the score. Strayer was able to keep Hernandez down for most of the period, and by the time Hernandez did finally score the escape point, Strayer had enough riding time -- points based on how much time a wrestler stays on top of his opponent -- to earn a bonus point, and took a 2-1 win.\n"Going over tapes this week, we really didn't expect him to be that tough on top," Hernandez said about Strayer. "But I think I could have worked a little harder on bottom and tried some more moves."\nWhen IU sophomore Brandon Becker took the mat to face No. 13 Nathan Galloway a couple matches later, the results were almost identical as Hernandez's match, except this time it was Becker who kept Galloway down long enough in the final period to take a 2-1 victory on riding time. Becker said while he was glad he was able to defeat Galloway, he would have liked to pin him to earn bonus points for the Hoosiers.\n"I really wanted to keep him down the entire period and try to turn him and get extra points, but he's a good wrestler and he fought hard," said the No. 8-ranked Becker.\nAs they prepare for the final weekend of the regular season with two road matches against No. 13 Northwestern and No. 3 Michigan, the Hoosiers hope they will be able to prepare enough so they will be able to win the close matches they have been struggling in as of late.\n"Obviously they have enough to be right there," Goldman said. "So it's not like they need more training or they need more conditioning or they need more this or that. They're right there. It's just a question of individually as an \nathlete getting it done"