Wrestling

Matched up against watered-down competition, the Gophers wrestling team went into the Bison Open and took care of business.

The team captured nine individual titles, including at 157 pounds, where Jake Deitchler competed for the first time in more than a year.

The only weight class Minnesota didn’t win was 174, in which true freshman Logan Storley took second. He reached the title match, but an injury default forced him from the bout.

Coaches were not available for comment on Storley’s injury.

After finishing seventh in the NCAA championships last year, the No. 4 Gophers’ wrestling team will try to rise back to the top of the college wrestling world.

Four returning All-Americans, a promising collection of youngsters and the potential return of former phenom Jake Deitchler may help achieve that.

“This is a hard year to predict,” assistant head coach Brandon Eggum said. “We’ve got a lot of young guys that are very talented that we expect big things from.”

Joe Russell enjoyed a few passing moments in his office Monday with his wife Sadie and their 8-month-old son, Taft.

He knows those moments in Minnesota are fleeting as he enters a liminal stage in his coaching career.

Russell announced two weeks ago that he would step down as head assistant wrestling coach for the Gophers to accept a head coaching position at George Mason University.

With boxes strewn about his office and Taft playing with toys in a corner of the disheveled room, Russell acknowledged the change will be bittersweet.

Despite a disappointing seventh-place finish in the team race, Minnesota grabbed five All-America honors at the NCAA championships, four from wrestlers who will return next season.

The All-American who will not be returning, however, is senior captain Mike Thorn (141 pounds), who took third and was the team’s highest finisher.

Last year, senior captain Jayson Ness highlighted the Gophers’ NCAA championships with closing-seconds heroics. This year, Mike Thorn got his chance.

Thorn beat rival Montell Marion of Iowa 4-3 in the waning seconds of their consolation match.

The Gophers wrestling team finished third Sunday at the Big Ten championships, but Iowa and Penn State’s neck-and-neck team race made Minnesota seem like an also-ran.

Penn State won the team championship, ending Iowa’s three-year reign as kings of the Big Ten and earning the school’s first conference title since joining the Big Ten in 1993. The Gophers sent three wrestlers to the finals but came away with no individual champions.

Though the Gophers wrestling team dropped a chance at the regular season Big Ten title, the Big Ten championships offer a shot at redemption.

After tying Penn State and losing to Iowa in the final two weeks of the regular season, the team will look to prove that it belongs with the class of the Big Ten.