North Dakota State opened their 2018-19 schedule with a 26-17 victory over #16 Northwestern. The Bison scored victories in seven of ten weight classes and got bonus points from Brent Fleetwood (125), Andrew Fogarty (165), and Tyler McNutt (184). Fleetwood and Fogarty both recorded falls, while McNutt racked up an 18-3 technical fall.
The dual started at 125, where Northwestern’s #3 ranked Sebastian Rivera weighed in, but didn’t take the mat against Bison senior Brent Fleetwood. Fleetwood, who isn’t currently ranked but should put the rest of the country on notice over the next few weeks, scored a fall in 4:59 over Northwestern backup Dylan Utterback. Cam Sykora then scored a decision in the only matchup of the day featuring two ranked wrestlers. Sykora, ranked 20th by Flowrestling, defeated #14 Colin Valdivez 4-0 and in doing so pushed the Bison team lead to 9-0. Bison head coach Roger Kish then sent three freshmen to the mat in their first career dual action. 141 Gavin Sutton was pinned in just over a minute by Northwestern’s Yahya Thomas when Thomas was able to throw Sutton to his back from a scramble position, making the dual score 9-6. Jaden Van Maanen got the Bison back in the win column with a high action 12-10 victory over Shane Oster at 149. A major decision win from Northwestern’s Ryan Deakin over Nick Knutson narrowed the dual score to 12-10, but that was as close as the Wildcats would get. After the intermission, Bison #14 ranked Andrew Forgarty extended the dual score to 18-10 with a 4:48 second fall over Tyler Moreland. The Bison and Wildcats then split the last four bouts, with Northwestern winning with #13 Johnny Sebastian at 174 and #14 Conan Jennings at 285, and the Bison scoring McNutt’s technical fall at 184 and a 5-3 decision from Cordell Eaton at 197. Jennings and Bison redshirt freshman Brandon Metz battled through a tight first two periods before the Northwestern senior rode Metz out for the third period and racked up three different sets of nearfall points. The final score was 12-0.
NDSU is home again this Thursday evening for a tilt with Northern Illinois.
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