Reusse: After win vs. Iowa, Blockhus boost for Gophers is real
Melissa Blockhus encountered some tension among select residents in her home location of Cresco, Iowa, several years ago, when her son Michael decided to take his outstanding wrestling skills a half-hour south to New Hampton before his junior year of high school.
Michael was known as Millage then, the name of his biological father, and was not able to legally fulfill a desire to change his surname to Blockhus until turning 18.
Tony Blockhus had been a stepfather with whom he remained close and also the surname of the "two most important women" in his life, Melissa and younger sister Paetyn.
Years after the move to New Hampton was smoothed over, with Michael winning the last two of his three state wrestling titles for the Chickasaws, another potential public relations problem surfaced this week that Melissa was required to put to rest.
"Your son told me, ma'am," I said in a phone call to Cresco this week, "that you threatened to duke it out with Herky the Hawk if Iowa's mascot didn't stop poking at you during Monday's dual with the Gophers at Carver-Hawkeye Arena."
Melissa laughed, and then said emphatically: "Not true. A dad wanted to get a picture of Herky and his son. I was in my Minnesota gear and Herky wanted to show he was anti-Gopher in the picture. It was all fun and games."
So, yes, Hawkeye lovers in Cresco, Herky and Melissa are fine.
What wasn't fine for the Iowa faithful was this:
Michael Blockhus, now wrestling at 157 pounds for the Gophers nine years after he won his first Iowa prep title at 106 pounds, gave the first defeat of the season to the Hawkeyes' Jared Franek with a dramatic takedown in the closing seconds.
Franek, a transfer from North Dakota State, was ranked No. 2 nationally and Blockhus was down the list at No. 11.
"It's a new and higher weight class for me; plus, I lost a match to a wrestler from George Mason earlier this season," Blockhus said. "That's been held against me, as it should be.
"And a ranking during the season, it's just a number next to your name. What counts is being the No. 1 guy at the end of the year."
The victory over Franek does put Blockhus in the national picture at 157 pounds, and also offers the memory of a wondrous sound inside Iowa's home arena:
Silence.
"Franek was a point ahead, and I took a shot in the final 20 seconds and was working on the takedown," Blockhus said. "I got the 'two,' rode him for a few seconds and it was over. And it just went quiet in there."
