By Mike Finn

Ohio State coach Tom Ryan admitted he felt that his Buckeye team had a good chance to upset top-ranked Iowa for the team championship after sending three of his wrestlers to the NCAA finals.

            That was until he heard a familiar sound in St. Louis’ Scottrade Center later that night on Friday, March 20.

            “I could taste it,” said Ryan about a possible NCAA team title, “but Iowa did a great job coming back.

            “The one match that I remember most vividly was when (Iowa heavyweight Dan) Erekson was on the mat with the Edinboro kid (Joe Fendone) and Erekson was down 6-1. I felt that if that match went Edinboro’s way, that would take away potential points for the Hawkeyes.”

            But Ryan, a former Iowa All-American (1991-92), knew what could happen if the Hawkeyes could find a spark.

            “Then I heard the crowd erupt and I felt, ‘Oh no. Please don’t tell me that (Erekson) came back,’ ” added Ryan, eventually learning that Erekson rallied for a 8-6 sudden victory in his wrestleback bout. “He did and that’s what Iowa wrestling is about.”

            And in the end of the 2009 NCAA Division I championship one night later, the prohibitive-favorite Hawkeyes — who went through the dual season unbeaten, won the Big Ten tournament and had seven of its nine wrestlers in St. Louis seeded at least fifth at their weights — won for the second straight year and 22nd all-time in the 79-year history of the event by a 96.5-92 margin over Ohio State.

            But it wasn’t the tournament outcome may experts predicted as Iowa was forced to scored 51.5 of its points in the “wrestleback” side of the brackets.

             After the Hawkeyes won just 9 of 18 bouts during Friday’s quarterfinal and semifinal rounds when three of their returning All-Americans  — Charlie Falck (125), Alex Tsirtsis (141) and Jay Borschel (174) — were eliminated from Saturday’s medal consideration, many thought that the Buckeyes — who held a 3-1 advantage in finalists — had mathematically knocked off the Hawkeyes.

            “I don’t know how we did it,” admitted Iowa coach Tom Brands, March 21, after his team won by the closest margin (4.5) since Iowa held off Minnesota by two points (100.5-98.5) in the 1999 tournament. “If you would have asked me where we were last night, I would have had trouble believing that we would have been within three and one-half points.”

            When action resumed Saturday morning, Ohio State held a 84.5-81 margin with three of its wrestlers — Reece Humphrey (133), J Jaggers (141) and Mike Pucillo (184) — wrestling in the championship matches later that night.

            Iowa, which also won the 2008 team title over OSU, had just one finalist — defending champion Brent Metcalf (149) — and four in the consolation bracket: Daniel Dennis (133), Ryan Morningstar (165), Phil Keddy (184) and Dan Erekson (Hwt).

            “Coming into this round, we had our backs against the wall and we had our work cut out for us,” said Morningstar, who was dropped to the wrestlebacks after losing in a 2-1 tiebreaker to Wisconsin’s Andrew Howe. The Iowa juniors later heard from his coach that Iowa’s NCAA future would be decided by those in the wrestlebacks.

            “He said,” Morningstar continued, “ ‘I’m not going to give you a lot of rah, rah to pep you up. You know what you need to do. You go out and take care of business and do what we’ve done all year.’ ”

            The four Hawkeyes in consolation did that Saturday morning, going 6-2, including a pair of sudden-victory decisions by Morningstar over instate rivals Moza Fay of Northern Iowa (5-3) and Jon Reader of Iowa State (7-5) to claim third place.

            Morningstar, who wrestled in five overtime matches in St. Louis, also may have taken more offensive shots in those two matches than in his previous four bouts.

            “Part of taking shots is putting pressure on them,” Morningstar said. “(Opponents)  are feeling some heat. You put pressure on them and make them fold.”

            But it was Erekson’s pin against top-seeded David Zabriskie of Iowa State in a consolation semifinal in 1:31 that really ignited Iowa’s fans.

            “Those first three matches (in Saturday’s wrestleback session) were huge and none were bigger than Erekson’s,” said Brands.

            “I had just taken him down and had gotten the takedown surprisingly easy,” said the seventh-seeded junior, who lost to the Cyclone twice during the regular season. “(Zabriskie) got out (on an escape) and another shot was just there and he tried to roll through. I always look for something off a takedown. It was just basic. I stuck the half in.”

            At the end of the All-American round on Saturday, Erekson settled for fourth place and — with a fourth-place finish by Keddy and seventh by Dennis — Iowa held a 97.5-88 margin over Ohio State, whose only consolation wrestler, 149-pound Lance Palmer, finished fourth.

            After winning 21 of 32 matches on Thursday and Friday — compared to Iowa’s 24-12 mark after two days — Ohio State won just two of five matches on Saturday.

            Most expected that the Buckeyes would have to win all three championships matches — worth at least four points — and perhaps earn bonus points to catch the Hawkeyes, whose finalist, Metcalf, had already defeated is opponent, NC State’s Darrion Caldwell, by a technical fall in November’s NWCA All-Star Classic.

            But there would be no victories for the Hawkeyes that night when Caldwell, the No. 3 seed, upset Metcalf, 11-6; marking the first time since 1978 that an Iowa team failed to include an individual championship with its team title. (The last school to win a team title with no individual titlist was Minnesota in 2001.)

            Metcalf also cost Iowa a critical team point when the junior was penalized for poor sportsmanship when he shoved a back-flipping Caldwell, who started celebrating with seconds on the clock.

            “The guy is a super, super ambassador for the sport and is an incredible competitor,” said Brands, who defended Metcalf’s actions after suffering just his second collegiate loss in 74 matches. (The other was a loss to Caldwell early in the 2007-08 season). “He doesn’t have a shut-off valve.”

            The Buckeyes, meanwhile, won just one championship when Jaggers defended his 141-pound title with a 10-4 decision against Old Dominion’s Ryan Williams. But with the Metcalf loss, OSU was mathematically alive until Northwestern’s top-ranked Jake Herbert defeated Pucillo — last year’s 184-pound champ — by a 6-3 margin.

            The Buckeyes once against finished a school-best second place, but were impressive after finishing sixth at the Big Ten tournament, two weeks earlier.

            “I feel very fortunate to be the guy running the program that people care about,” said Ryan, whose team had an impressive number of fans in the Scottrade Center.

             “Quite frankly, it’s a program that can impact a lot of lives. There are so many things happening in our lives that we put aside and spend money to support other people. It’s an incredible gift and I’m fortunate.”

            Brands, meanwhile was left speechless, trying to put a good team spin on a team performance that saw Iowa score 32 points below its seeds.

            “I don’t want to be celebrating but I’m going to do it because there are a lot of good things that happened,” said Brands, whose team will return all its All-American points in 2010.

            “I’m the leader of the program and I have to do it. I’m not going to go negative here. I can’t.”