No. 2 Huskies flatten Dragons 40-4
St. Cloud, Minn. – No. 2 St. Cloud State Wrestling won nine of ten bouts with a whopping eight bonus-point wins in a 40-4 demolition of Minnesota State University Moorhead on Thursday evening, opening their two-dual home week with a thunderous victory. Anthony Herrera scored a pin at 157, Kameron Teacher (HWT), Paxton Creese (125) and Nick Novak (149) added tech falls while Joseph Bianchini (141), Dominic Murphy (174), Billy Pitzner (184) and Noah Ryan (197) supplied major decisions.
SPOTLIGHT MATCH
In a night full of fireworks from St. Cloud State, 149-pounder Nicholas Novak continued his incredible true freshman season by winning his third straight match without allowing a point to open his dual career. Novak started off fast with a quick takedown of Ethan Kiehm, then turned him three times for a pair of four-point nearfalls followed by two swipes. Kiehm was dinged for stalling, then Novak wrapped things up by adding four more back points to earn the 17-0 tech fall at 2:43.
No. 2 St. Cloud State 40, Minnesota State University Moorhead 4
HWT – No. 2 Kameron Teacher by tech fall over Jake Erckenbrack, 22-6 (5-0 SCSU)
125 – No. 7 Paxton Creese by tech fall over Clayson Mele, 19-2 (10-0 SCSU)
133 – Cole Jones by major decision over Daniel Valeria, 13-0 (10-4 SCSU)
141 – No. 1 Joseph Bianchini by major decision over Hunter Hayes, 20-7 (14-4 SCSU)
149 – Nicholas Novak by tech fall over Ethan Kiehm, 17-0 (19-4 SCSU)
157 – Anthony Herrera pins Jacob Thomas at 2:45 (25-4 SCSU)
165 – Jared Head over Braydon Ortloff, 15-9 (28-4 SCSU)
174 – No. 5 Dominic Murphy by major decision over Justin Dravis, 14-6 (32-4 SCSU)
184 – No. 7 Billy Pitzner by major decision over Gage Roaldson, 11-0 (36-4 SCSU)
197 – No. 2 Noah Ryan by major decision over Steven Abbott, 10-2 (40-4 SCSU)
St. Cloud State Coach Steve Costanzo had this to say:
“We’ve been talking about this the last couple of duals, just trying to go out, score points and not be satisfied with just winning matches – looking for more bonus points. Winning eight of those ten matches with bonus points showed that tonight.”
On standout performances… “Eight matches we got bonus points – I was pretty excited about those eight matches. Every time we’re out there scoring bonus points, racking up points, I’m excited about all our performances.”
On looking ahead to tomorrow’s dual… “You can’t be satisfied with tonight’s performance. Tomorrow we regroup, there’ll be a couple new guys in the lineup tomorrow, we just have got to come back out with some enthusiasm and some energy. We’ve got a really good team tomorrow in Northern State, from top to bottom they’re pretty solid. I know they’re excited to wrestle us, we’ve just got to be a little more excited and come out trying to rack up as many bonus points and takedowns as we can.”
UP NEXT: The Huskies celebrate Senior Night on Friday evening at 7:00 p.m. CT at Halenbeck Hall. Coverage is available on the NSIC Network and TrackWrestling, with links available on the SCSU Wrestling page. MSUM’s next action is the Super Region V tournament on Feb. 26 at Nemzek Fieldhouse.
Check out Huskies Wrestling at scsuhuskies.com and on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.