'This is what I envisioned when I came here': Record crowd sees Wisconsin wrestling almost upset No. 2 Iowa at the UW Field House.
MADISON – In his role as the head wrestling coach at the University of Wisconsin, part of Chris Bono’s job is to promote the program to recruits and fans.
Sunday, his team did the talking.
Sparked by a stunning upset win by Tyler Dow and highlighted by top 10 wins from senior Austin Gomez and sophomore Dean Hamiti, the Badgers, who are ranked 13th in the nation by Intermat, came to the brink of upsetting second-ranked Iowa before falling on the third tie-breaker at the UW Field House.
The Hawkeyes took home a 19-18 win. The Badgers went home with the satisfaction of knowing that they gave a show to a record crowd of 5,256 that including numerous youth and high school teams.
Maybe a seed was planted.
“This is what I envisioned when I came here,” Bono said. “We now have to put 6,000 people in here for every match. It’s such a home-field advantage for us. I’m proud of the way we fought. I keep telling these guys we’re in an upward trajectory.”
The performance capped a bounce-back week for the Badgers, who started Big Ten play 0-3 but scored a 28-9 win over Purdue Friday and won five of the 10 matches against Iowa Sunday.
The dual featured three matchups pitting wrestlers with top 10 rankings nationally. Wisconsin won two of them: Gomez, who is ranked No. 2 at `149 pounds, defeated No. 7 Max Murin, 5-3, and Hamiti, who is ranked sixth at 165, beat No. 10 Patrick Kennedy, 4-3.
Senior Eric Barnett, who is ranked sixth at 125, was pinned by three-time national champion Spencer Lee at the 4:38 mark.
UW dominated the upper weights, winning four of the final five matches. Two of those wins – junior Josh Otto, an Arrowhead High School graduate, at 174 and Dow at 184 – came by wrestlers with sub-.500 records.
“It’s great to see this team come together,” said Bono, whose team is 7-5 overall and 1-4 in the Big Ten. “We are a very good team. I keep saying that and we haven’t really shown it week in and week out. I think (today) we grew closer as a team.
“These guys really believe in each other. More importantly I think we have 10 guys who believe in themselves. Skies the limit for these guys.”
'Stoughton tough' Tyler Dow
Dow, a redshirt senior from Stoughton’s powerhouse program, was an unlikely hero. He entered the dual with a 5-9 record and just Friday snapped a five-match losing streak during which he was pinned once and lost by technical fall twice.
Assad, meanwhile, was 13-1 and ranked eighth in the nation.
Dow, however, was an elite Greco Roman wrestler in high school, experience he used to his advantage against Assad after escaping a single-leg takedown attempt. Handling attempts at his legs has been a point of emphasis for Dow and Sunday he deftly worked out of the potential trouble.
“I’ve got to sprawl, get my legs back and do the right things and in that match, you see it,” he said. “He’s in on a single leg, I sprawl, get my legs back and then get to the position I want to get to which is double overs … I am good in that position, so if I feel (good) I’ve got to take it, if not I’ve got to be smart and not force things.”
Dow scored the pin in just 84 seconds, tied the dual, 15-15, and send the crowd inside the Field House into a frenzy.
The moment was a dream come true for someone who grew up 30 minutes from the Field House.
"Stoughton tough. The kid is from Stoughton, Wisconsin. That's what they do," Bono said. "Everyone knows Tyler has an incredible Greco background. He's made world teams, competed in world championships in Greco, but I think 0 for 6 in upper-body positions until that."
Sophomore Braxton Amos, who is ranked 13th at 197, provided UW’s fourth straight win, 4-0, over unranked Kolby Franklin to give the Badgers an 18-15 lead heading into the final match.
That final match, however, was as tough a chore as expected. Iowa’s Tony Cassioppi entered the match ranked third with a 15-0 record that included nine first-period pins and 10 pins overall.
The Badgers countered with No. 11 Trent Hillger, a senior who dropped a 4-1 decision that forged an 18-18 tie and caused the match to be decided by tie breakers.
"We want every kid in Wisconsin to be a Badger"
This, however was one of those days when victory wasn't just measured on the scoreboard.
“Growing up in Wisconsin and being a Wisconsin boy, you live for moments like this. …. Wrestling for the university is something I’ve always dreamt of,” Dow said. “Everyone in the state should want to be here. You see what we can do when we fill that thing. This needs to happen every time.”
The match Sunday marked the start of the second half of the Big Ten season for UW.
It will play at No. 9 Northwestern on Friday and travel to No. 5 Nebraska on Sunday before closing out the conference dual season at home against No. 20 Minnesota on Feb. 11.
From there the only other competition, a non-conference dual against Northern Iowa at home on Feb 18, comes before the start of the postseason.
That's just two more chances to see Wisconsin at home before the end of the season. Bono hopes the fans keep coming out.
“I think the state is finally seeing who we are as a staff, who we are as a team and what these kids can do," he said. "They deserve it. I think we had over 40 high school teams here plus nine billion youth kids. These kids need to grow up in this Field House watching this team wrestle, so we can have them as Badgers. They need to be a Badger, all of them. We want every kid in Wisconsin to be a Badger.”
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin wrestling draws record crowd for near-upset of No. 2 Iowa
