MADISON, Wis. – In a weekend of home action, the No. 4 Wisconsin wrestling team dropped its Big Ten Conference dual against Michigan State on Sunday afternoon in the UW Field House, 19-17. Bonus points were the key to the Spartan win.
 
Eric Barnett came out swinging for the Badgers. At 125, the true freshman stayed undefeated at home and scored the 6-2 decision over the Spartan's Logan Griffin.
 
No. 1 Seth Gross continued his dominance in the 133-pound weight class. After beating No. 3 Roman Bravo-Young on Friday night, Gross took the major decision from MSU's Garrett Pepple with a score of 13-2.
 
At 149 pounds, Cole Martin bounced back from a loss on Friday. Martin wrestled one of his best matches of the season and beat Michigan State's Alex Hrisopoulos with a 7-2 decision.
 
Evan Wick was out for revenge on Sunday afternoon after losing a decision on Friday to No. 1 Vincenzo Joseph. Wick faced off against Michigan State's Austin Hiles and got the 10-2 major decision.
 
After losing three matches in a row, it all came down to Trent Hillger at heavyweight. Wrestling for the first time since being headbutted at Purdue on Feb. 2, Hillger needed a pin for the team victory. Hillger wrestled hard and wrapped up the major decision against Christian Rebottaro, 9-2.
 
Straight from the mat

"I'm not worried about their skill I'm worried about toughness. Tough positions, scoring at the end of periods, being a little tougher in practice, being a little tougher when you got a little nick or a little bruise. And learning how to work through tough situations in matches, in practice. We need our guys that are not the horses - our Evan Wicks, the Seth Gross, the guys that are highly ranked, they're doing their jobs. They went out and got five wins from our five guys that have been winning all year. We need someone to do something that they're not supposed to do and we don't have that right now. We've gotta go back and we've got to get a little tougher. Some guys are feeling sorry for themselves right now, it's the end of the year. We gotta build them up, we gotta get a little bit tougher and we gotta get after it."
    -    Head coach Chris Bono 

"I didn't do what I should have done. That was an opportunity for us to get bonus points and I didn't attack like I should of. There were some positions in there and some hand fighting where I needed to be more aggressive. I kind of feel guilty. I kind of feel like I let the team down a little bit. Before the dual, Bono said it was going to come down to bonus points and we need to win those bonus points in the toss up matches. I didn't get bonus points and that's a problem."
    -    Freshman Eric Barnett 

"I guess my mindset is to just be aggressive. If I try ripping the guy's arm off, he's either going to get his arm ripped off or he's going to his back and I just needed to get to that position and I wasn't able to. We're a very, very good team on top, but right now we can't really figure out how to get a bunch of turns or a bunch of back points, bonus points. I think it just comes down to being tough, being aggressive, putting these bottom guys in a painful position. They're either going to go to their back or get hurt and we've just got to start having this mentality that we're going to be the crap out of these guys and if they don't want to go to their back, they are going to get hurt. We just need to get that mentality as a team and keep that moving forward. Like I said, we've got really good guys on top and now we just have to implement that into the match."
    -    Redshirt sophomore Trent Hillger 
 

Notables

• 1,337 fans were in attendance for the snowy Big Ten battle
• Eric Barnett and Seth Gross are still undefeated at home
• The Badgers close out the regular season at home next week against Michigan and UNI

 

Results

Michigan State 19,No. 4 Wisconsin 17
125: Eric Barnett (WIS) over Logan Griffin (MSU) by dec. 6-2
133: No. 1 Seth Gross (WIS) over Garrett Pepple (MSU) by maj. dec. 13-2
141: Matt Santos (MSU) over Dominic Dentino (WIS) by maj. dec. 16-5
149:  No. 13 Cole Martin (WIS) over Alex Hrisopoulos (MSU) by dec. 7-2
157: No. 24 Jake Tucker (MSU) over Garrett Model (WIS) by dec. 12-4
165: No. 4 Evan Wick (WIS) over Austin Hiles (MSU) by maj. dec. 10-2
174: No. 23 Layne Malczewski (MSU) over Jared Krattiger (WIS) by fall
184: No. 9 Cameron Caffey (MSU) over No. 22 Johnny Sebastian (WIS) by dec. 6-2
197: No. 18 Nick May (MSU) over Peter Christensen (WIS) by dec. 6-5 
Hwt.: No. 4 Trent Hillger (WIS) over Christian Rebottaro (MSU) by dec. 9-2
 

Up Next

The Badgers will have a week off before hosting No. 18 Michigan on Feb 16. Wisconsin will welcome back Alumni for the match against the Wolverines.