Foul Territory

I went to a wrestling match today. North Carolina State took on Virginia. It was a close match that went down to the last match of the day. Virginia ended up winning 22-21. NC State had to wrestle without their regular 157 and 133 wrestlers. That may have made a difference. I'm not sure if the 133 would have won, but the 157 would definitely have been favored. There were two turning points that swung the match the Cavaliers way. First, at 165, NC State's best guy was wrestling a ranked guy. It was going well until the Virginia guy scored some backpoints and the State guy pulled one of his fingers illegally. After that, the State guy head butted him, and then later hit his face a little too enthusiastically. That ended the match and put 6 points on the scoreboard for Virginia. The Wolfpack almost recovered, though. The 285 match featured a match that the State guy should have won bigger. In the third period, all he had to do was escape and get another takedown, which hadn't looked like it would be a problem up to that point. Instead, he gave up a takedown he never should have given up and ended up winning by 6 instead of 8 or 9. Those were the main turning points that I saw. Secondarily, I had hoped that the State 141 would not get pinned, even though he was wrestling the #1 ranked guy in the country. Also, at 149, the State wrestler scored three first period takedowns, but still ended up with only a regular decision. Obviously, the match didn't hinge on one thing, but those four situations could have made a difference in the match.