Last Week In DI: Nolf's Knee A Concern, Heil Stumbles Twice

Last Week In DI: Nolf's Knee A Concern, Heil Stumbles Twice

Breaking down all the major stories in DI wrestling from the final weekend in January.

Jan 29, 2018 by Wrestling Nomad
Last Week In DI: Nolf's Knee A Concern, Heil Stumbles Twice

There was so much to unpack from this past weekend's slate of NCAA Division I action. We're going to do our best to break it all down for you, and man, there's a lot of ground to cover.

Jason Nolf's Knee

Jason Nolf's apparent knee injury was unquestionably the news of the weekend. The Penn State junior and reigning national champion at 157lb had to injury default during his match against John VanBrill in a dual at Rutgers on Sunday night. We still don't know much, but the national team race implications are potentially massive.

PSU/Rutgers Left A Lot Of People Unhappy

There was a lot of blame and anger being passed around on social media after top-ranked Penn State's road win over #12 Rutgers, mainly centering on accusations of the host Scarlet Knights being dirty. In turn, the New Jersey media members focused on PSU coach Cael Sanderson not speaking to them afterward. Chalk that up to emotions running high after a tense dual.

Dean Heil Lost... Twice

The two-time national champ and Oklahoma State redshirt senior went from winning 55 in a row to losing four of his last seven matches. Coach John Smith seemed at a loss for words in his post-match press conference Sunday when talking about Heil, who was pinned by Missouri's Jaydin Eierman and lost to Iowa State's Ian Parker this weekend.

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Mizzou Beat Oklahoma State

This was one of the stranger duals I've ever seen: Barlow McGhee injury defaulting, Kaid Brock getting spladled and still winning, Jaydin Eierman pinning Heil, Chandler Rogers nearly getting pinned but then pinning for the win, and Willie Miklus ending Preston Weigel's perfect season. Weird.

Michigan Beat Iowa

For the first time in Tom Brands' career, the Hawkeyes lost to the Wolverines. The two big items I take out of Saturday's match for Iowa are that Alex Marinelli is still undefeated and Michael Kemerer didn't wrestle.

Jack Mueller Lost To Tariq Wilson

Mueller led the nation in tech-falls and was an All-American at Virginia last year and got as high as #3 in the rankings this year. But the sophomore takes yet another loss to an unheralded guy, this time unranked Tariq Wilson of NC State.

Penn State Lineup

Nick Lee picked up his first win over an All-American when he majored Minnesota's Tommy Thorn on Friday, seemingly cementing the freshman as PSU's 141-pounder. Meanwhile, the Nittany Lions' Shakur Rasheed wrestled Friday and Anthony Cassar wrestled Sunday.

Lizak Didn't Wrestle Rivera

Minnesota junior Ethan Lizak missed another dual on Sunday, as the 2017 NCAA finalist lost an opportunity to pick up his seed for Big Tens. Also of note, Ryan Deakin's walkoff pin gave Northwestern its first win over UM since 1996.

Chance Marsteller Beat Chad Walsh

One of the EWL's biggest individual matchups in years went the way of the Lock Haven junior Marsteller by an 8-4 score over the Rider senior Walsh.

Te'Shan DQ'd, NaTo Keeps It Close

A couple of interesting tidbits from Ohio State's win over Michigan State on Friday: OSU's Te'Shan Campbell got stalled out, sending coach Tom Ryan into a frenzy. Additionally, the Buckeyes' Nathan Tomasello only beat true freshman Rayvon Foley 7-3, a closer result than most would expect.

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Ryan Preisch Still Not Wrestling

The last time we saw the Lehigh junior wrestle was December 10 at Drexel, when Preisch had to injury default out against Joey Heyob. It's now been seven weeks since we've seen the nation's fourth-ranked 184-pounder.

Jason Tsirtsis Wrestled For ASU

Another lineup battle that has been going on all year has been Arizona State's 149 spot. Tsirtsis wrestled on Wednesday night against CSU-Bakersfield, leaving the spot still undecided.

Solomon Chishko Lost Twice

The Virginia Tech redshirt junior has not seemed like a two-time All-American this season, and his return after nearly a two-month layoff did not go well. The 11th-ranked Chishko lost to North Carolina true freshmen Austin O'Connor and UNC backup Sawyer Davidson at the Appalachian Open on Saturday.