The Northern State wrestling team was able to take away two matches from the #1 ranked St. Cloud State Huskies, who had eight ranked wrestlers touch the mat.

The Wolves dropped their third dual of the year to a deep and experienced Huskies squad 28-6 in Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference action Friday night at Wachs Arena.

“Overall, that’s probably one of the better teams I’ve seen in a long time, like top to bottom,” said NSU coach Rocky Burkett. “We’ve wrestled number one teams in the country the last couple years, so I know what good is, but they’re really good man.”

The first win of the night came from Braydon Mogle at 141 pounds facing a familiar foe. The 12th ranked Wolf went up against Alyeus Craig, ranked 13th, who he had previously lost to last year.

“Me and that kid have wrestled a couple of times. I’ve actually never beat him, so it was good to get that one back,” Mogle said. “J-No (Assistant Coach Josh Nolan) came up to me before, he’s like, ‘Just get us started,’ and I was like ‘Alright, let’s do it. I’ll do it.’”

Mogle did get it started for the Wolves, but it wasn’t until the third period when Mogle started on bottom after riding Craig for the whole second period. Mogle escaped right away and secured a last-second take down to give him the 5-0 win.

“He’s a really good wrestler. Every time I get on his legs, he’s super scrambly. Like he’s just weird dude. He’s super good,” Mogle said. “So, I was hesitant, but at the end, making him have to chase me down a little bit, it opened it up, made it a lot easier.”

The other win came from Nathan Schauer in the last match of the night. Nathan found himself in a hole early on, down 6-1 in the first period, but eventually tied it up with a takedown of his own with 39 seconds left in the second period.

“Just to stay patient. Don’t rush anything, just know that your offense is good,” Schauer said. “You’ve put up big points this fast before in the past, and that’s what you’re going to do.”

Schauer let his opponent up for a 1-point escape, and immediately shot for a takedown getting the lead back to 9-7 just 20 seconds into the third period. A quick escape had Schauer only up one point with just under 90 seconds remaining.

He shot one final takedown as time was expiring, and was successful for a final score of 12-8, and Wachs Arena erupted for the final win of the night.

“I think the crowd motivated me since I think at the end I was winning, so I knew I didn’t have to score,” Schauer said. “Just the crowd being behind me really pushed me to go get that score. Don’t leave anything up to chance.”

Two true freshmen had strong showings for the Wolves, but fell just short of grabbing wins. Sloan Johannsen, at 125, dropped his match 11-5, but was tied at 5-5 just before he gave up a reversal with 17 seconds left in the second period. Griffin Lundeen faced off against Joel Jesuroga, who is currently ranked 1st, and dropped that match 4-2.

“That guy’s (Jesuroga) an Iowa transfer. He’s really good and Griffin, we gotta get some more offense. Like that’s the one thing we’re lacking. … But dude, the kid’s a fighter,” Burkett said. “Sloan’s a fighter. Sloan was in there. If we don’t give up that reversal at the end of the second, there’s a different match.”

Tyson Lien also put up a tough battle against the 2nd ranked wrestler at 197, Dominic Murphy, dropping that match 4-2 as well.

“Tyson is up against this really good guy and as soon as we came out of that underhook and tried to attack another side, which is good, we got to get to an attack still, but we kind of opened ourselves up because we got too aggressive,” Burkett said. “Overall, I mean he’s been real close man, and he’s had I think two All-Americans the last two times and he’s been really a takedown away.”

Despite coming away with just two wins on the mat against the Huskies, the hometown crowd helped fuel the Wolves, especially being back at Wachs Arena.

“I love it. It’s the best man. We get fans everywhere we go,” Mogle said. “And then when you come home, the stadium’s packed, so I love it. There’s nothing like it, it’s a great atmosphere.”

The Wolves are back in NSIC action Sunday as they hit the road to take on Minot State on Sunday.

125: Conor Knopick (SCSU) over Sloan Johannsen (NSU) (Dec 11-5); 133 #8 Sam Spencer (SCSU) over Clay Gates (NSU) (TF 18-2 6:36); 141 #12 Braydon Mogle (NSU) over #13 Alyeus Craigh (SCSU) (Dec 5-0);

149 #13 Colby Njos (SCSU) over #4 Wyatt Turnquist (NSU) (Dec 1-0); 157 #1 Joel Jesuroga (SCSU) over Griffin Lundeen (NSU) (Dec 4-2); 165 #3 Nick Novak (SCSU) over Izaak Hunsley (NSU) (MD 12-1);

174 #2 Bryce Dagal (SCSU) over Mason Fey (NSU) (MD 13-3); 184 #9 Bryce Fitzpatrick (SCSU) over Damen Paper (NSU) (Dec 9-3); 197 #2 Dominic Murphy (SCSU) over Tyson Lien (NSU) (Dec 4-2); 285 Nathan Schauer (NSU) over Jadon Mims (SCSU) (Dec 12-8).