By DAN McCOOL
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
Iowa City, Ia. – Alex Grunder said Iowa’s wrestling team on Saturday gave a glimpse of what this winter might hold.
The No. 8 Hawkeyes (2-0) collected 26 takedowns, gave up only three and coasted to a 39-3 win over Arizona State before an announced crowd of 4,905 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
The meet was the home debut for Tom Brands as Iowa’s head coach.
Phil Keddy, at 184, and Mario Galanakis, at 133, scored pins, Grunder had a technical fall at 149 and Eric Luedke got a meet-opening major decision at 174 as the Hawkeyes more than doubled their total of 12 takedowns in Tuesday night’s 18-15 win at Northern Iowa.
“I think we all thought we were ready to go (against Northern Iowa) and ready to beat any team that came up against us, “said Grunder, who was one of six Iowa wrestlers who got only one takedown in their match Tuesday night.
“UNI’s a good team and everything like that, but we just feel like we’re a lot better than that. Today we showed that.”
Iowa built a 36-0 lead before the Sun Devils (2-1) got their first win with their first takedown of the day – two-time all-American Brian Stith’s tap-and-go in overtime at 157 that beat freshman Ryan Morningstar.
Arizona State’s other two takedowns came in the first period of the 165-pound bout, when Pat Pitsch built a 4-2 lead only to lose 8-4 to Mark Perry.
Grunder, who dropped a 3-2 decision to Northern Iowa’s Charlie Ettelson Tuesday, resembled many of his teammates Saturday in burrowing repeatedly for takedowns. He scored nine of them and got a point for his 4:48 of riding time to get the technical fall over Cameron Smith at 149.
“I felt like I was in on a lot of shots and I just wasn’t finishing, “Grunder said. “Our coaches are always preaching to us, you know, ‘Keep attacking.’ Throughout the week, we’ve been working on constant attack.”
Arizona State coach Thom Ortiz saw something for next week’s practice planner in the meet. Too many takedowns were too easy for the Hawkeyes, Ortiz said.
“I think we’re going to sprawl all of next week before Las Vegas, “said Ortiz, whose team is at Iowa State today at 2 p.m. “They’d shoot and we’d leave our leg there.”
Brands said Saturday’s meet gave the Hawkeyes something important to work on.
“There are some spots in there where we’re a little bit indecisive as to whether we’re going to put the guy away or not, “Brands said. “It’s almost like we’re waiting for the guy to quit. When we smell blood, we’ve got to do a better job of just axing it, go for the jugular instead of (hanging) around a little bit.”
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