Grapplers topple Arizona State

Wesley Griffin

The ISU wrestling team won again by beating the Arizona State Sun Devils, 19-16, winning five of 10 matches Sunday night.The meet started off at 165 pounds with second-ranked Joe Heskett winning over Arizona State’s Steve Blackford with a decision of 10-8.”The first thing I wanted to do was to get a takedown which I did,” Heskett said. “I went out hard, and he is one of my biggest rivals and every time we wrestle it is a good match”Two years ago, Blackford gave Heskett his only defeat as the Cyclone junior finished the season 38-1. “I learned from my mistakes and worked on those in my conditioning,” Heskett said. “It feels good going into nationals since I know my goals and will not let any match capsize them. It feels good to win and it was no surprise because I expect to win every match, dominate every match since I have a positive mindset.”Arizona State’s Curtis Owen won a decision of 5-1 over Iowa State’s Perry Parks, tying the meet 3-3.At 184, Cael Sanderson added to his undefeated season by pinning R.D. Pursell of Arizona State with a time of 3:49. Cael’s pin gave the Cyclones a lead of 9-3.Zach Thompson increased the Cyclones’ lead, adding four points to the team score by winning a major decision with an 18-6 win.At heavyweight, Arizona State started to close the gap when Kellan Fluckiger won a decision of 12-6 over Iowa State’s Mark Knauer. The Sun Devils continued to close the gap when Chris Knox won with a major decision of 10-1 over Iowa State’s Jacob Moore, bringing the team score of 13-10 in favor of the Cyclones.Matt Azevado won a close match, beating his opponent 3-1 and adding three points to the Cyclones’ lead.At 141, third-ranked Eric Larkin of Arizona State beat Zach Roberson with a score of 9-4. Roberson decided to continue the match after receiving an injury in the third period.Billy Maldonado won a decision over Dana Holland with a score of 3-2, increasing the Cyclones’ lead to 19-13.”It feels real good to be back. Coach Douglas kept me up most of the time, he was real positive and the ISU team picked me up too,” Maldonado said. “I felt better in this match. I had a tough loss on Friday, but Coach Douglas said it gets better as it goes along. I feel like I didn’t miss a thing after these two matches.”At 157, Cole Sanderson lost a very close match to Arizona State’s Rocky Smart. Smart scored a takedown with 14 seconds left in overtime, winning the match 5-3 and making the final score 19-16 in favor of Iowa State.”Arizona State has a good team; they are very competitive and tonight was no exception,” Douglas said. “We know how we match up against them, they have some tough guys, who wrestled pretty good. Our conditioning helped us a big deal and we had crowd support. We wrestled hard and they wrestled hard. Overall, it was a hell of a match.”