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(02/12/09 4:53am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>When it came time for sophomore Kurt Kinser to choose a college, he didn’t want to go far.A graduate of Bloomington High School South, Kinser said he wasn’t interesting in leaving the state.“I’ve always liked the atmosphere of the city, and it was just as good of choice as any other would have been,” he said.While most kids get their first taste of sports around the age of six or seven, Kinser was on the mats by the age of four. “My dad wrestled in high school, and that’s what got me going,” he said.Kinser’s background in wrestling equipped him for a high school and Amateur Athletic Union career most wrestlers only dream of having. While a sophomore in high school, Kinser took runner-up at a AAU wrestling event. At Bloomington South, Kinser went 5-5 his freshman year and lost only once his junior and senior years. That sole defeat came in the state championships as a junior. A year later, Kinser won the state championship.“I look back on that as one of the most memorable moments of my career up to that point,” Kinser said.IU coach Duane Goldman and Kinser’s teammates have trouble putting into words what Kinser, who was ranked No. 12 in the 157-pound weight class as of Feb. 6, means to the team.“With his physical approach to his matches, he brings a lot of emotion and energy to this team,” Goldman said. “He’s a good role model for the guys because he’s got qualities that are good for wrestling.” Teammate Paul Young, a sophomore and 165-pound grappler, said Kinser’s dedication is unmatched.“His will is hard to describe because it’s the strongest I’ve ever seen,” Young said. “When I see how much heart and emotion he puts into this team, it really makes us get into it.”Young also attended Bloomington South and has been friends with Kinser since second grade. “He’s easily the toughest guy on the mat, but then the nicest guy off of it, which is something every wrestler should try to be,” Young said. Kinser said his high school wrestling coach, Royce Deckard, and his father prepared him not only for the next level of wrestling, but for life.“The game builds character, and Coach Deckard had our program set up great where we conditioned hard and focused on the fundamentals,” Kinser said. After graduation, Kinser said he hopes to enter the service industry.He said he is looking at criminal justice, and he might go to theology school.Whichever career Kinser chooses, Young said he believes Kinser is equipped to be as successful as he is on the mat. “He’s just a great kid all around,” Young said. “You just know whatever he chooses to do, he will be successful at it.”
(02/04/09 4:55am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>To IU wrestling coach Duane Goldman, the Hoosier wrestling program has taken great strides in the last 17 years, but he hopes that equal steps have been taken toward enriching the lives of all of his athletes. Goldman, who is in his 17th season at the helm of IU wrestling, is what many would call a “lifer” of the sport. Beginning his wrestling career at just 10 years old in Colorado Springs, Colo., Goldman started his involvement with the sport at a local YMCA.“My dad wrestled at the University of Wyoming and got me involved in it,” Goldman said. Goldman’s accolades began accumulating as his career got underway at Cheyenne Mountain High School in Colorado Springs. Winning the state championship twice and earning a runner-up spot his junior year, Goldman compiled an 82-25 record at Cheyenne Mountain. After Goldman’s high school career ended, he was unsure where the best place to continue wrestling would be. “I had offers from Oregon State, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Iowa State,” Goldman said. “My high school coach’s brother was best friends with Coach (Dan) Gable at the University of Iowa.” Gable is a name familiar in the wrestling world. Serving as coach at Iowa from 1977 to 1997, Gable went 355-21-5 (.932) during his tenure as head coach. He amassed 21 Big Ten titles while coaching 152 All-Americans and 45 NCAA Champions. One such champion was Goldman in 1986.“Iowa at the time was winning national titles, and I wanted to be the best wrestler that I could possibly be,” Goldman said. It didn’t take long for Goldman to realize he would be pretty good at the collegiate level. He recalled the most memorable moment of his wrestling career was during his freshman year at Iowa when a dual meet at Iowa State came down to his match.“I came in at 9-and-6,” Goldman said. “My opponent was an All-American, and I ended up winning that match, and it gave us the opportunity to go on and win that meet. From then until the NCAA finals, I didn’t lose,”Goldman would finish second each of the next two years before winning the 190-pound (class) NCAA National Championship. But an NCAA title still couldn’t keep Goldman from hitting the mats after college. Participating on the USA National Team, Goldman’s body began to feel the effects of competing in the sport for over a decade. “The training aspect was getting burdensome, and I started to have some nagging injuries,” Goldman said. It was then that IU came calling, offering the young wrestler an assistant coaching position. At first Goldman declined, electing to serve as an assistant at West Point.However, after just a year the Hoosiers targeted Goldman again. This time he accepted. “After that first year, I decided to go to Indiana, and two years later was fortunate enough to become the head coach,” he said. Since accepting the position, Goldman has transformed IU wrestling into a nationally recognized program at a school more known for its basketball and soccer programs. IU assistant coach Pat DeGain attributes Goldman’s success to the intangibles. DeGain lettered three years for the Hoosiers while taking third place in the heavyweight class at the 2005 NCAA Championships.“He’s a great motivator and has an exceptional understanding of how to read the athletes,” DeGain said. “He’s a scary and intense guy, but you know he’s going to get the job done and be successful at whatever he does.”It’s Goldman’s ability to read athletes that has landed him many highly ranked recruiting classes.Trevor Perry, who is currently ranked No. 15 in the 174-pound weight class, is one wrestler Goldman recruited. “He played a big role in my coming here,” Perry said. “I liked the fact that he was straight to the point and is a very honest man.”To Goldman, success on the mat is only part of why the job is so rewarding.“When I got here, IU wasn’t respected on a national level,” Goldman said. “I think we’ve built a program that is respected on that level.”
(01/20/09 4:49am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Numbers told the story Sunday as the No. 20 IU wrestling team dominated in the IU Quad meet. The Hoosiers finished with a team score of 116. Their opponents, American, Clarion and Gardner-Webb, combined for 14. IU trounced Gardner-Webb 43-3, rolled over American by a score of 24-11 and stomped Clarion 49-0. IU recorded 12 pins on the day, two coming from both defending national champion and No. 4 Angel Escobedo (125-lbs.) and Matt Ortega (133-lbs.). Ortega and Escobedo were perfect at 3-0, along with teammates Eric Cameron (184-lbs.), Matt Powless (197-lbs.), and Paul Young (165-lbs.).One marquee match of the day was No. 12 Trevor Perry (174-lbs.) of IU against No. 3 Michael Cameron of American. Perry fell 1-0. He returned successful in the next match, pinning Clarion’s Scott Joseph in 50 seconds. Big Ten play begins 7 p.m. Friday against No. 14 Penn State in Bloomington.
(01/12/09 5:43am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU wrestling team struggled in Cedar Falls, Iowa, this weekend, losing to both the No. 2 Iowa State Cyclones and the No. 9 Wisconsin Badgers.IU was dominated by Iowa State 35-0 in their first match at the IWCA/Cliff Keen National Duals Meet. The Hoosiers bounced back somewhat against Wisconsin, winning four matches, but coming up just one match-win shy of upsetting the Badgers, falling 19-15. IU’s Angel Escobedo, the defending 125-pound national champion, came into the event undefeated at 9-0.Escobedo lost his first matchup 3-1 of the year to Iowa State’s Tyler Clark. Escobedo would wrestle another match with an outcome of 3-1 – except this time the score went in his, and the Hoosiers’ favor. Escobedo defeated Wisconsin’s Tyler Hammen, breaking into double digits in wins this year.Other Hoosier winners against Wisconsin were Matt Ortega in the 133-pound weight class, Matt Coughlin at 157 and Eric Cameron at 184.
(12/08/08 3:09am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU wrestling team fell on some bad luck in Sin City this weekend during the 27th Annual Cliff Keen Las Vegas Open.Despite getting three members of the team in the top 10 out of 44 teams, including a third place finish by 174-pound wrestler Trevor Perry, the squad faced many unfavorable matchups against preseason ranked opponents on the road to its ninth-place finish at the open.Nate Everhart began Friday with a pin against Cody Jamgaand of Dickinson State, but then faced up against No. 6 Benjamin Berhow of Minnesota and slipped out of championship contention with a 3-2 decision in favor of Berhow. Everheart then faced No. 5 Dustin Rogers of West Virginia and lost a 7-4 decision, ruining his chances at a medal.Matt Powless, at 197 pounds, faced a ranked opponent in his first match Friday, losing 20-6 to No. 7 Cam Simaz of Cornell. Powless then fought his way through the wrestlebacks toward a matchup with No. 8 ranked Joe Kennedy of Leigh University and lost a decision 7-1, sending him to into the seventh-place match against unranked DJ Bruce of Virginia Tech. He lost the match 17-3, finishing eighth.Sophomore Kurt Kinser,, ranked No. 9 nationally by InterMat as of Dec. 2, recorded several victories in the 157 weight division before falling to the second place winner at the open, pre-season top ranked Jordan Leen of Cornell. He then lost a wrestleback match to No. 5 Chase Pami of Cal Poly in a 6-2 decision. But he ended the day on a high note, upsetting No. 6 ranked Jason Johnstone in a close 5-4 matchup to claim seventh place.The team wound up placing behind several other Big Ten competitors, including Minnesota, Purdue, and Michigan, while it came out on top of Ohio State, Wisconsin and Illinois. The Hoosiers will compete next at the F.I.T.E. Duals on Dec. 21 in Oak Lawn, Ill. They will face off against Eastern Michigan University, Harper College and University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
(12/01/08 5:13am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Thanksgiving break is a time for relaxation, meeting with old friends and celebrating the holiday season.For the Hoosier wrestling squad, however, Thanksgiving break is time for sweat, muscle and throwing people around.As students enjoyed the break with their families and friends, the IU wrestling team was busy putting on another impressive performance in the first home meet of the year, the Hoosier Duals, going undefeated as a team.The Hoosiers wrestled dual matches against the University of the Cumberlands, Liberty, Rutgers, Ohio and South Dakota State.IU wrestlers Angel Escobedo, Andrae Hernandez, Eric Cameron, Matt Ortega, Nick Walpole and Paul Young all went undefeated on the day. Walpole defeated No. 16-ranked Tim Harner, a Liberty wrestler, by a score of 6-4. Despite the team’s strong showing, there were also some struggles among the group individually.Nate Everheart, ranked No. 13 at the beginning of the season, lost three of his five matches to unranked opponents. Matt Coughlin, ranked No. 12 at the outset of the year, also lost a decision to unranked Scott Winston of Rutgers. The team hopes to improve on its performance in the Duals as they head into the Las Vegas Open on Dec. 5, its first true test of the season as a team.
(11/07/08 5:03am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>With a national champion and two All-Americans last year, the IU wrestling team had what it generally considered a successful 2008-2009 season.This year, junior Nathan Everheart said the team is aiming for a higher goal, and that goal has a ranking next to it.“I think that at Nationals, we have a lot better chances of placing higher,” Everheart said. “If our team does well, I think we should definitely be top five. That would be a successful season for us.”The IU wrestling team, ranked No. 16 in the nation by Wrestling International Newsmagazine and InterMat in pre-season polls, is preparing for the season opener on Sunday in the Michigan State Open. IU coach Duane Goldman has similar expectations to those he has every year, he said. He hopes to take his individual wrestlers through the season healthy, fresh and prepared for the Big Ten and NCAA Tournaments. While they wrestle a tough schedule, Goldman said, the successes in the regular season do not compare to the importance of the National Tournament.The Hoosiers face some challenges this year, as well. One of Goldman’s short-term goals, for now, is to get a set lineup and determine who his starters are and get them “hardened for battle.” The team has six weight classes left up for grabs due to wrestlers changing classes and senior class graduation.“We have at least three weight classes where we need to regroup and improve,” Goldman said. “I think we have the talent, but I don’t know if we have the confidence of last year’s team.”That’s not to say the team is not ready to perform. IU returns three previous All-American wrestlers who Goldman expects to step up and lead the team: defending national champion Angel Escobedo, junior Matt Coughlin and senior Andrae Hernandez, Escobedo’s cousin.The team expects to improve on last year’s record, but it knows the Big Ten presents some of the most challenging opponents in the nation. Wrestling International ranked eight Big Ten teams besides IU in its top 25, including Nos. 1 and 2 Iowa and Ohio State, respectively. “I think because it’s so tough in the Big Ten,” Everheart said. “I would say record-wise, it would be a success to finish about the same as last year.”Members of the team are prepared to improve upon their individual results as well. Seeing as many of the wrestlers have experience in the national spotlight, they have set their sights high in anticipation of great seasons.“You always go into the season with high expectations,” Escobedo said. “This year, I’m looking to go undefeated and hopefully win a national title again.”Hernandez and others are going through changes to ensure success this year.“I’m moving up a weight class,” Hernandez said. “Just moving up a weight class from last year is definitely going to help me out, because my body won’t have to go through as much strain and stress as last year.”Compared to last year, several Hoosiers said there are many strengths as well as weaknesses they need to improve on. While there is more experience on the team as a whole and wrestlers are “hungry,” Everheart said, confidence is necessary for success in such a tough conference.“I think it’s just believing in ourselves,” Hernandez said. “We’re competing in the Big Ten, and that’s the toughest conference, but we wanted to be in the Big Ten for a reason. We wanted to wrestle the best.”The Michigan State Open, which will take place Sunday, will start the team’s season. Coughlin said he hopes to start off strong.“When I go to the opens, I just shoot for one thing,” Coughlin said, “and that’s to win it.”Most of the team will wrestle either as representatives of IU or as unattached wrestlers.“Definitely on an individual level, we’re looking for guys to go in there and beat people,” Goldman said. “They need to be ready to go. Hopefully, we have a number of guys do well.”