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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

sports wrestling

5 wrestlers end season at NCAA Championships

Though IU wrestling sent five wrestlers to the NCAA Championships with high hopes, all five fell short of the mark.

With the completion of the NCAA Championships, the IU season has come to a close with a long and challenging record to show for it. Each of the five wrestlers who competed ended their seasons with considerable accomplishments, and added another season to the record books.

Going into the Championships, both IU Coach Duane Goldman and his wrestlers would argue all the right preparations had been made, from physical to mental training.
 
Goldman said the five wrestlers representing IU — sophomores Joe Duca, Taylor Walsh and Luke Sheridan and juniors Ryan LeBlanc and Adam Chalfant — were used to “being the elite” and they would not be afraid of the competition they would meet.

However, as the tournament progressed, the competition the Hoosiers faced became more than the five could handle.

By the end of Session I, IU sent three of its five wrestlers into the round of 16: Walsh, LeBlanc and Chalfant. The other two wrestlers, Duca and Sheridan, would be sent to the wrestle backs after their physically demanding matches.

Walsh would wrestle first for the Hoosiers in Session II, but the mental high of beating the No. 3 seed in Session I did not carry over to Session II. Walsh was defeated by Boise State’s Georgi Ivanov in a 9-6 match, and would be sent to the consolation wrestle backs. The string of losses would continue after Walsh’s match with a loss by Chalfant.

Duca and Sheridan, who were sent to the wrestle backs right away after Session I, would not fare any better than their teammates. Duca was immediately pinned in his first wrestle back, ending his 2012-13 season. Sheridan suffered a similar fate, being topped by Illinois’ Tony Dallago, ending his sophomore season with a total of 22 wins, two of which were against nationally ranked opponents.

With four of the five wrestlers out of the tournament, the pressure fell on LeBlanc to defend the Hoosier name. Entering his wrestle back against North Carolina’s John Staudenmeyer, LeBlanc led the entire first period, but Staudenmeyer fought back to tie the score at the end of the second period. The match would go into sudden victory, and Staudenmeyer topped LeBlanc, ending LeBlanc’s junior season with a total of 24 wins and his second NCAA appearance after coming back from injury.

While the Hoosiers did not make it past the round of 16, the team as a whole did what they could with a season Goldman described multiple times as being one of the most difficult.

— Taylor Grayson

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