Question: After finishing third at the prestigious NWCA/Cliff Keen National Duals in Iowa over the weekend, is it safe to assume the MSU wrestling team is once again one of the top Division II wrestling programs in the country?

Answer: Well ... yes and no.



Minnesota State head coach Jim Makovsky described the tournament as a good measuring stick and a way to see what his team is capable of, but it’s not the end all be all.

“We’re definitely not firing on all four cylinders yet,” he said. “We still have some room to grow.

“There were at least four matches in the loss to Omaha that I felt we were capable of winning and we didn’t do it. We’re still flawed.”

The Mavericks may not have hit their stride yet, but the weekend effort proved the team can wrestle with the big dogs. MSU downed fifth-ranked Western State 23-16, knocked off West Liberty State 27-11, defeated Gannon University 36-10 and lost to No. 1-ranked Nebraska-Omaha 30-6.

“We kind of think finishing in the top four is a bare minimum for our program every year,” Makovsky said. “It reinforced our belief system in what we’re doing but we still have a way to go.”

No. 1-ranked senior heavyweight Brady Wilson had the best tournament of all the Mavericks, compiling a 4-0 record. The three-time All-American downed No. 2-rated Charlie Alexander of Western State 4-3, pinned Mike Carpentier of West Liberty State in 2:59. He then beat No. 3-ranked Elijah Madison of UNO 2-1 before closing out with a 6-0 win over fifth-ranked Frank McGrath of Gannon.

Wilson, however, was a proven commodity for MSU even before the tournament. Of more interest was how some of the team’s other wrestlers would perform.

Travis Elg, for example, had struggled getting down to his 149-pound weight class during the early season and had few matches under his belt. The senior All-American lost twice on the opening day of the tournament but then rebounded with a 12-5 win against UNO and a pin in 1:24 against eighth-ranked Kevin McElhaney.

“When he won his match against Omaha you could see the life come back in him,” Makovsky said. “He wrestled strong; I was proud of him.”

Andy Forstner (125), Robby Fisher (141), Ben Becker (174 and Aaron Norgren (184) also looked good, solidifying their spots in the starting lineup.

Another wrestler who impressed Makovsky was sophomore John Makabe who went 0-4 at 197 pounds. Makabe, a walk-on from Kenya, weighed 157 pounds at the start of the season and got up to 170 before the weekend so he could help the team out at 197.

“It takes a certain kind of mentality to wrestle up that many weights and I think John earned the respect of a lot of his teammates,” Makovsky said. “By the end of the tournament he wasn’t just a sacrificial lamb, he was wrestling well.

“He almost beat a guy on the last day who was built like Tarzan. It was cool to see him grow up like that in one weekend.”

Derrick Jacobs, who is coming off a broken hand, is expected to take over the starting spot at 197, if not tonight then in the next meet. When Jacobs returns the Mavericks will probably be as healthy as they’re going to be at any time this season.

MSU has a nonconference meet against UW-Eau Claire at 7 p.m. today in Bresnan Arena. After that, the Mavericks host MSU-Moorhead at 7 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 22.

“We have a little bit of wind at our backs right now, knowing that we can compete with the top teams,” Makovsky said. “But a lot of our guys haven’t wrestled their best matches yet. In some cases they’ve wrestled just good enough and that’s not going to be good enough in March when it counts.”



Jim Rueda is the Free Press sports editor. To contact him, call 344-6381 or e-mail him at jrueda@mankatofreepress.com.