Seeing an end to the regular season, the University of Indianapolis Wrestling team was able to tie the university’s dual record at 14-9 following their wins against the Ouachita Baptist University Tigers and Truman State University Bulldogs and loss against Notre Dame College Falcons, on Feb. 12.
Going into the meet, Head Wrestling Coach Jason Warthan saw it as opportunity to work on where the team is at.
“These are all out of our region matches so it’s another opportunity, we get to wrestle Notre Dame again,” Warthan said. “They’re ranked second and it’s a chance to test ourselves and see where we are at. Ouachita Baptist are a little down this year compared to what they have been and they’ve been a really good program in the past. The last time we wrestled them they beat us pretty bad so it would be nice to go in there and get some revenge. These are all preparation for the end of the season. We just came off of the conference duals so these are another chance to kind of test ourselves nationally and not focus so much ourselves on conference and just go out there and prove our national ranking. We will see Truman State again. We wrestled them a couple of weeks ago so we kind of know that team and we can see if we’ve improved a little bit.”
The Greyhounds ended the meet against the Bulldogs where they scored high numbers and won 39-9. The Hounds had won their first eight matches starting of with a 7-3 win from 125 freshman Ana Abduljelil. After the win, UIndy ended the day with a winning record of 2-1 adding to the overall season record of 14-9 going into the NCAA Division II Super Regional 2 Tournament.
Facing their only loss of the day, No. 3 Notre Dame managed to defeat UIndy 35-10. The Greyhounds only pulled out three wins coming from 174 redshirt-sophomore Brendon Kelley 13-3, 184 redshirt-junior Luke Kriech 10-5 and 197 sophomore Brody Connor 6-3. The three wins of the day gave UIndy the 10 points of the match.
Starting off the day with a 26-18 win against Ouachita Baptist to start off the University of Indianapolis winning six out of the ten matches. 125 redshirt-sophomore DJ Smith took the first win of the day, pinning Ouachita Weston Cronan at 4:30. The Greyhounds managed to keep the Tigers at zero until the 4th match.
According to redshirt junior Neal Molloy, trusting yourself and trusting the team is what will help them out through regionals.
“Season overall has definitely had its ups and downs,” Molloy said. “Overall I feel like this season’s process compared to last seasons process has been a lot better and I feel a lot better and confident. Believing in the process is what is going to set the difference when it comes to regionals.”
The Greyhounds will return to action for the 2017 NCAA Division II Super Regional 2 Tournament hosted by the University of Indianapolis in Nicoson Hall on Feb. 24-25.
