BROOKINGS – South Dakota State won four of the 10 matches on Sunday afternoon, but that wasn’t enough as the Jackrabbits fell to Northern Iowa 19-13 at First Bank & Trust Arena.
It came down to the heavyweight match as the No. 14 ranked Jacks trailed No. 19 ranked Panthers 16-13. It was No. 24 ranked Luke Rasmussen taking the mat for SDSU and Adam Ahrendsen for UNI. Ahrendsen ended up coming up with a 5-4 decision to seal the deal for the Panthers. Had Rasmussen won it would have been 16-16 and the Jacks would have won due to total points won.
Daniel Guanajuato kicked things off for the Jacks at 125 and he won a 5-0 decision over Brandon Paez. No. 21 ranked Julian Farber then won the first match for the Panthers as he won a 10-1 major decision over Derrick Cardinal at 133. At 141 SDSU’s Julian Tagg, who is ranked 11th, won a 14-3 major decision over Connor Thorpe. Caleb Rathjen won a 10-6 decision over SDSU’s Colin Dupill at 149 and then No. 15 ranked Cael Swensen picked up an 8-2 decision for the Jacks over Cael Rahnavardi at 157.
The Panthers won the first three matches after the intermission. No. 6 ranked Ryder Downey won a 7-1 decision over Jacob Herm and No. 12 ranked Jared Simma won a 5-2 decision over No. 14 ranked Moses-Espinoza-Owens. Nick Fox won a 4-1 decision over Brock Fettig at 184 and then No. 5 ranked Bennett Berge won a 4-1 decision for SDSU at 197 over Carson Babcock to force the winner-take-all match at heavyweight.
This was the second time that the Jacks lost to the Panthers this season as UNI beat SDSU 20-14 in the finals of the NWCA National Duals. SDSU dropped to 12-4 overall and 5-2 in the Big 12 in duals. The Jacks will host the Jackrabbit Open on Feb. 15 and then will take on North Dakota State in Brookings on Feb. 22 at 2 p.m.
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