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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

sports wrestling

Wrestling wins dual meet against Duke, Cleveland State

On Sunday, IU defeated Duke 22-15 before going on to beat Cleveland State 25-10 in the tri-meet. Duke defeated Cleveland State 19-16 in their matchup.

Despite performing well in the win column, the players and coaches seemed to feel the Hoosiers wrestled sloppily in the opener.

“First match we were all a little flat,” junior Luke Sheridan said. “But then we came together as a team, talked about it, noticed our mistakes, put it behind us and moved on to the next one. I felt we definitely brought a lot more pressure that second dual, definitely showed our upsides and what we have to do this year.”

Sheridan won both matches today by at least five points. He is ranked No. 12 nationally at 184 pounds.

Senior Heavyweight Adam Chalfant, ranked No. 6 in the nation, won his first match 10-4 and then went on to defeat Cleveland State’s Sophomore Riley Shaw 14-5.

Chalfant had a similar feeling about the difference between the first two matches.

“Team performance was ... awesome our second match against Cleveland State,” Chalfant said. “Our first match, I think a lot of guys felt their weight, and plus it is our first home dual, and that is never any easy one. A lot of guys were getting rid of the butterflies in their stomach.”

IU Coach Duane Goldman was pleased that the Hoosiers won their matches but was aware that there were some struggles adapting to the different format.

“They just need to get used to that one-hour weigh-in and wrestling in these kinds of situations,” Goldman said. “That’s why it’s good to have this kind of thing this time of the year.”

Another successful Hoosier today was Senior Ryan LeBlanc. Leblanc, who is ranked 18th in the country at 165 pounds, won his first match 9-0 and his second match 16-1 for a technical fall.

Sophomores Ethan Raley and Eric Roach went 2-0 today. Roach’s victory against Cleveland State’s Sophomore R.J. Labeef came down to a takedown by Roach with 13 seconds left to win 4-3.

Junior Taylor Walsh, the No. 8 ranked 157-pounder in the nation, did not wrestle today. Walsh was not feeling up to par, so the staff decided not to have him compete, Goldman said.

In Walsh’s place, Sophomore Alex Gregory wrestled at 157 pounds when he normally wrestles at 149 pounds. He held his own at the change in weight class, wrestling in two tight bouts, winning the second 1-0 against Cleveland State’s freshman Latrell Davis.

Junior Joe Duca finally made his debut today. Duca had a strong end to last season and put in hard work all off-season, Goldman said, but he lost both matches.

“Obviously, Joe had a real disappointing day,” Goldman said. “He started showing signs of what he can do in that second match in spurts. He’s just got to go back to doing what he does best and get there on a consistent basis.”

Despite a slow start, IU started the season at 2-0.

“It feels really good,” Sheridan said. “Especially coming out here, first dual at home. We had some friends coming out, some close family members here and what not. It feels great to get some good wins and put on a little bit of a show.”

Follow wrestling reporter Brody Miller on Twitter @BrodyMillerIDS.

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