Shutout in Iowa, Purdue’s Hinkel still hopeful about Boilermakers’ future

By Jason Bryant
Wrestling411

An Iowa administrator approached and informed Lipsett the team’s bus had gotten stuck in the snow outside Carver-Hawkeye Arena and had to be pulled out by a tow truck.

“Perfect,” said Lipsett, sarcasm blatantly apparent and an indicator of how the night had went.

It was a fitting way to sum up the Boilers’ performance on Friday in front of 5,709 fans in Iowa City.

Iowa picked up bonus victories at 125, 133, 141, 149 174 and 184 pounds highlighting the 10-bout sweep.

Afterwards, second-year head coach Scott Hinkel addressed his squad. And boy, did he ever.

“You’re not in there encouraging things after getting shut out,” said Hinkel.

One thing Hinkel and coaches Glenn Lanham,Tom Erikson and Chris Fleeger needed to address was fight. Other than sparse sequences and situations, Purdue wrestlers were flat, reluctant to fight off any attacks.

“We addressed (fight) a lot,” said Hinkel. “It’s got to be fight in the room. It’s got to be fight out there. You could take a person out there tonight who had no clue about a wrestling match and have them sit there and watch and they could tell if someone was fighting or not, even if they don’t know how to keep score.”

There was no better indicator of the lack of fight from the Boilermakers than the final match of the night, where Iowa reserve Jordan Johnson beat Chris Kasten 5-2 at heavyweight. Kasten’s a junior in his fourth year with the program, Johnson’s a redshirt freshman called into duty to fill in for injured Dan Erekson.

Erikson, who specializes in coaching the Purdue upper weights, was visibly fired up after the match. Not because of any questionable outcome, but for the lack of fight.

Hinkel made some line-up adjustments for a variety of reasons, inserting Matt Fields at 125 pounds, Matt Hemry at 141 pounds and Jason Martin, normally at 165-pounder, at 184 pounds.

“We threw some different guys in there looking for some, not different results, but different opportunities. That’s what well do in Wisconsin (on Sunday),” explained Hinkel.

Purdue wrestling is all Hinkel has ever known. An All-American as a competitor in 1987 and a long-time assistant under former coach Jessie Reyes, his first responsibility to his wrestlers is making sure they keep their heads up.

“I have a good team, but this wasn’t a good indicator tonight,” said Hinkel. “I told them all I’d go to bat for them. We have an understanding of where we’re at. We’ve got a lot of guys back next year and I’m excited. This is where I wanted to be.

“It’s just a challenge,” he said.

“I don’t want to say you’re bottoming out, but after a performance like that, you’re close to it. You hope to wake up tomorrow and have the opportunity to show what you can really do.”

Purdue, ranked 25th coming in, fell to 11-5-1, while Iowa improved to 21-0, remaining the only unbeaten team in Division I. Now, Hinkel heads north to Madison to wrestle Barry Davis’ Wisconsin Badgers, winners on Friday over Minnesota.

“What are we going to do?” Hinkel asked his team. “How are we going to finish the season? Tell me. We’ve talked about it. What are we going to do. You guys are going to have to do it.”

As Purdue headed towards it’s now-freed bus, Hinkel feels confident they can put the loss behind them and continue building the program into a contender.

“You can take this match and forget about it,” Hinkel said. “There’s no easy team sin the Big Ten. Coach Erikson talked about it a lot. How do you compete? What’s it mean to you?

I’ve tried to have every person draw on whatever inspires them,” said Hinkel. They know I’m a competitor in everything, that’s how I was brought up and that’s all I know. I need them to draw on something that’s going to bring that (fight) out of them. We’re going to madison to compete. We have to compete all 10 weights, win or lose, wrestle hard and get ready for the post-season. No one’s going to care we got shut out here in Iowa at the Big Ten Tournament.”

The building process in West Lafayette is slow, but Hinkel believes it’s steady.

“I’ve never been anywhere else, so I can only compare (building) to a high school, taking over an inner-city school which was in a rough environment,” he said. “It’s along the same lines. I try to get to know these guys on an individual level, not just their best moves, but what makes them click. How was their day? What were they doing in the summer? Do they have any jobs lined up? “I need them to trust us when they’re out there,” said Hinkel. “Tonight, it didn’t look very well, we just have to keep building and learning from it.

I think I’ve learned a couple of things from tonight that can help us with that.”

“The season’s not over,” he said. “We’ve got three matches left, the Big Ten Tournament and the National Tournament. Let’s do something about it.”

#1 IOWA 38, #25 PURDUE 0
125 - Charlie Falck (I) maj. dec. Matt Fields (P), 19-9
133 - Daniel Dennis (I) tech. fall Carson Beebe (P), 20-3 in 6:58
141 - Alex Tsirtsis (I) tech. fall Matt Hemry (P), 17-1 in 5:00
149 - Brent Metcalf (I) maj. dec. Jake Patascil (P), 14-4
157 - Matt Ballweg (I) dec. Colton Salazar (P), 6-2
165 - Ryan Morningstar (I) dec. Luke Manuel (P), 5-2
174 - Jay Borschel (I) maj. dec. Nick Corpe (P), 15-3
184 - Phillip Keddy (I) maj. dec. Jason Martin (P), 14-4
197 - Chad Beatty (I) dec. Logan Brown (P), 2-1 TB-1
Hwt. - Jordan Johnson (I) dec. Chris Kasten (P), 5-2
Officials: Kevin Tann, Kent Sesker.